The Dharma Wheel
by OmniHelix
Summary: On a road trip from San Clemente to New York, Rachel and Tom are touched by Finn's spirit in an unexpected way. A sequel to "Renascence".
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: As requested by several readers, this is the first chapter of a sequel to my story "Renascence": as such, I strongly advise anyone who hasn't read that story to go and read it first, because both stories take place several years after Finn's passing, and deal with Rachel finding love again. That said, this is still a Finchel story, because, as you will ultimately find, his spirit is alive and well in her heart. **_**Shantih. **_

The highway northeast out of Albuquerque stretched through flat, almost featureless desert, towards the Jemez Mountains on the horizon, and just beyond them, Santa Fe. Tom and Rachel were four-and-a-half hours out of the ponderosa pine and red rock country of Flagstaff, enjoying the mild September weather in the Triumph with the top down, singing their favorite songs, and looking forward to spending some time with the artwork of Santa Fe, before heading on to New York.

The cool, dry air felt good on her face, as did the sun. She glanced over at Tom, who looked relaxed behind the wheel, in his dark aviator sunglasses, curly hair blowing back, dressed like her, in a flannel shirts and jeans. She rummaged through a small bag.

"Want some red licorice?" she asked. He grinned.

"Sure, baby, thanks." It was his favorite road food; hers was gorp—good old raisins and peanuts-(without M&M's). He had been driving since Flagstaff, where they had stayed the night. She didn't ask him if he wanted to switch, mainly because it was only a half hour or so before hitting Santa Fe, and also because she had learned, on other road trips in the past two years, that he absolutely loved driving the open road for long stretches. She had to admit the Triumph was very comfortable, and fun to drive.

They made a pretty good team, she thought, handing him the licorice, and admiring the glint of the sunshine off the ring on her left hand.

**XXXXxxxx **

She waited for Tom to fall asleep before getting up herself. He had been up all night again, in a flurry of activity, tightening up some songs for _Don't Look Back_. Normally, he composed music at the piano, letting the music emerge from him spontaneously, to be written down later. Rachel loved watching him do this, and earlier in the day she had sat in the living room of his parent's house where he was working on the baby grand, writing down what she heard, and giving him feedback. But the creative streak extended way into the night, so Tom switched to a piano app on his iPad with headphones, so as not to disturb anyone. He didn't like using the app, which is why he had spent long nights sometimes in the rehearsal rooms at NYADA. Since he and Rachel had graduated, however, that option was no longer available, and he had grudgingly tried to adapt, sitting up in bed with her asleep beside him. She loved how he insisted having her at his side, even when she was asleep. He said it helped his creative process.

This particular time she awoke just as he finally settled to sleep, around 4:45. Slipping her black robe over her pajamas, she kissed him and headed for the kitchen to make coffee, only to see the light on and his mother already at the table, reading a medical journal, coffee cup at her elbow. She looked up with a smile.

"_Bonjour_, Rachel! You're up early for a Saturday."

"Good morning, Amélie," Rachel said, "Tom just now fell asleep. So I decided to get up now and avoid waking him later." It had taken a long time to get used to calling his parents by their first names (at their insistence), not to mention them having no problem with her sleeping with their son in his room when they visited.

"You are adults who love each other," his father had said, that first Christmas break. "That's all that matters to us."

Rachel poured herself some coffee and sat at the table.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you," she said. Amélie waved her hand.

"I'd love an excuse not to read this," she said, laughing. "I have so missed having a girl in the house again, even if it's only for a few weeks." She had jokingly complained that even the two cats, Jules and Jim, were male.

The two women had established a bond. Rachel was convinced Amélie believed she and Tom would get married, eventually, and had started treating Rachel more like a beloved daughter-in-law than a girlfriend. She went out of her way, for example, to inform Rachel about the family dynamics, the kind of information just a girlfriend would never get.

"Is all the planning done for your trip back to New York?"

"Yes," Rachel said, grinning, adding, "It's so nice to know we have paying jobs waiting for us!"

As Tom had suggested when they first fell in love two years ago, the two of them were going to drive to New York from San Clemente together in his Triumph. The producers of _Funny Girl_ had shown immediate interest in _Don't Look Back_, when Rachel asked them to look the play over four months ago. Funding had been approved for casting, and workshops could start soon.

"Any plans yet for becoming our daughter-in-law?" A kind wink. Amélie and Bob already had two of them, Mary and Frieda, and a son-in-law, Hank. All were accomplished in their respective fields: Mary was a journalist for the Los Angeles Times, Frieda an IT consultant, and Hank a molecular biologist. Rachel liked Mary and Frieda, both were in awe of her voice, long before they actually met-Mary and Bill had been to New York and had seen _Funny Girl_ with Tom, and gave the soundtrack record to family members afterwards. But she was also very fond of the soft-spoken Hank, who fascinated her with tales about his work, which involved trying to design viruses that would specifically attack and destroy cancer cells.

Rachel had come to love Tom's family. He idolized his brothers. They looked much like Tom, eight-years-older versions of him, even down to the glasses, and they, in turn, loved their little brother. When in high school, Bill and Ted would drive Joanna, his older sister, and Tom to their respective schools _and _pick them up. Joanna was only two years younger, so their social circles sometimes overlapped when they were together in middle and high school. Tom, being so much younger, would sometimes want to want to be a big kid and hang out with them and their friends. Often he was told, good-naturedly, that he couldn't, but that didn't stop them (and Joanna also) from being very protective of him.

Joanna was a taller version of her mother, dark-haired, with strikingly delicate features, and shared the trademark Foley offspring deepest-of-blue eyes. She and Rachel had met only a couple of times, on holidays, but managed to hit it off anyway. She possessed a good mezzo-soprano voice, and sang in a classical choir group in San Francisco. At family gatherings, Rachel actually got her to trade-off songs with her, while Tom played piano.

Rachel especially loved and respected how Bill and Ted worked with their parents at the family business. Amélie and Bob were both general practitioners, while Bill specialized in gastro-intestinal medicine, and Ted was a pediatrician. Joanna was a physician as well, a neurologist, but lived in San Francisco. Even she would pitch in and consult on difficult cases. On Friday mornings, Bob and Amélie held special hours for the large Orange County Cambodian community, many of whose older members didn't speak English, and benefited being treated by physicians who spoke Khmer fluently.

The Foleys were a tribe of laid-back, compassionate overachievers. And, after two years, Rachel already felt like one of them. But she had to be honest.

"Tom hasn't asked me yet."

"Are you ready for him to ask?"

A surprisingly perceptive question. Rachel and Tom had spoken lightly of marriage, but, at the last minute, the conversation always seemed to veer away. Rachel assumed the pressures of graduating and developing _Don't Look Back_ simply left them without the time to seriously consider getting married yet, but this summer, which they had both decided, together, to be about them, the question hadn't come up. She wondered, somewhat guiltily, why she hadn't mentioned it. Did it mean she subconsciously didn't want to get married?

She must have looked panicked, because Amélie gently took her hand.

"It's not that you two do not love each other, Rachel." She squeezed Rachel's hand firmly. "I'm his mother; I've known and loved him since he was conceived. And I can tell he loves you more than life itself." Then she smiled serenely. "But I also know you love my son just as much."

"You do?" Rachel asked, miserably. "So why haven't we really discussed it, then?" Amélie shrugged. "_Je ne suis pas sûr—_I'm not sure, but could it be due to thoughts about Finn?"

"What makes you say that?" A stabbing sensation filled her chest.

His mother looked wise and loving. "You were only seventeen when he proposed to you, and you were almost married twice. _Mon Dieu_, Rachel, I know how I felt when Bob proposed to me, and I didn't have everything snatched away so cruelly. How could that not affect you now? "

"Does Tom think I'm having doubts about marrying him? Because I don't."

"Rachel, he knows that. Of all my children, he is the most sensitive, _empathique, _you know? I'm sure he just wants you to be ready, so that when he does propose to you it will be a joyous occasion, free of the sadness of the past. He only wants to bring you joy."

"I know. He was just the person I needed. Oh Amélie, there are times when I think I don't deserve him."

"What you do not deserve," Amélie said, "is to be sad forever. You make my son happy. He makes you happy. You both deserve each other. Please let Tom bring you into our family. We love you as much as he does. "

Rachel smiled through her tears, and held Amélie's hands. She could see where Tom got his sensitivity.

"Could you tell me about Bob's proposal? Your whole story is so inspirational to me."

Amélie got up and poured them both more coffee. "Well, as you know, we both worked for _Médecins Sans Frontières_ , or Doctors Without Borders. In fact, it was our first actual job as physicians.

"In 1975 we were sent to Cambodia during the refugee crisis. Thousands of people were fleeing the Khmer Rouge, who were slaughtering everyone as they came to power, and the MSF set up some field clinics inside Cambodia to care for them. I didn't know Bob before that, but he was assigned to my clinic because he had been an army medic in Vietnam, and had extensive experience in emergency medicine as a result. Our clinic was very near the Thai border, in the jungle on the eastern slope of the mountains." She paused, savoring the memory. " It was a beautiful place, at first, when the people were just a trickle, and before the rainy season. There was a mountain spring nearby with the purest, sweetest water I have ever tasted.

"I was attracted to him the moment we met." Rachel smiled. "He was good-looking, of course, and he spoke French, which he picked up in Vietnam also. And he taught me, a young Parisian city girl just out of medical school, how to _triage_, how to quickly make decisions on who could be saved, and who could not." A shadow came over her. "That became _tres important_, when the rainy season started and refugees just overwhelmed our little station: bullet wounds, mangled limbs from land mines, machete slashes, as well as the tropical diseases, like malaria and dengue fever. "

Tears appeared in her eyes.

"We lost so many people, Rachel, especially the elderly and the children…. It was so awful. The death, and the dampness. Everything was damp. There was no way to stay dry. I felt wet, filthy, and useless, crying myself to sleep every night. I thought about going home, but Bob kept telling me how well I was doing, and how these poor, desperate people needed me. Then, one night, he told me that _he_ needed me, too."

Rachel recognized the look of love that came over Amélie then. It was the same look Tom gave her, and she felt a shiver.

"We became lovers." She adorably pronounced it "LUV-AIRS". "It felt, at times, that our love was the only decent thing to emerge from that place, because of what we saw: even Bob was shocked at the brutality of the Khmer Rouge, who, it seemed, looked like they were going to take complete control of the country. He said the Viet Cong were boy scouts compared to them.

"The worst day came towards the end of the rainy season. We hadn't seen any new refugees in several days, and managed to get caught up with the lingering cases in our tiny hospital. Bob was taking a nap while I finished my rounds. I was about to join him when some children came running up the muddy path, screaming for help. Behind them were some refugees, pulling two carts loaded with ten horribly injured people. They had been the victims of a mortar attack the day before. Oh Rachel, you have no idea how bad this was. We worked for a whole day and night trying to save them, but it was too late. None of them lived."

"Good Lord," Rachel said.

"We had never experienced anything like that up to then. I was heartbroken; six of the victims were young children. We were so overwhelmed that there was no time for tears. Both of us had been awake for almost 36 hours, and when it was over, everything caught up with me. I told Bob I needed to be alone for a while, and hiked to a natural clearing further up the mountain slope, which had a boulder you could sit on with a beautiful view of the jungle canopy below. A cool, dry mountain breeze eased the horrible dampness and for a few moments all I saw before me was a seemingly peaceful landscape, free of the inhumanity I had just witnessed. It was then that I finally started crying.

"I don't know how long I was up there, but when Bob eventually climbed up to join me, I was ready for his company. He said nothing, just sat next to me, arms around his knees, as the sun set behind us, throwing these beautiful purple shadows on the forest below. I lay my head on his shoulder. He asked me how I was, and I told him that, for the first time, I actually felt like a physician. Surprised, Bob asked me what I meant, and I said that I had finally been able to put aside any emotional response until the work was done, not letting my anguish get in the way. 'So you're saying you are ready to go down and do it again?' he asked. I nodded, and he kissed me. We sat for some time, listening to the growing night sounds of the jungle in the twilight. He took my hands and said he had something else to ask."

"He proposed to you _then_?" Amélie nodded, eyes shining.

"_Oui. _He told me I was the strongest, most beautiful person he had ever met, and that I could bring some love and joy, not only to him, but to that awful place as well, by agreeing to marry him."

"Oh, that's sweet. And you said yes, obviously."

"Oh _oui,_ I did. But I added that we had to get married at the station, so that the refugees still there could enjoy the celebration as well. You see, one thing we _did _have in abundance at that station was decent food…and a case of Canadian whiskey!"

Rachel had a question. "Did he have a ring to give you then?"

She showed Rachel her hand. The engagement ring was simple gold, with one large stone, in what looked like an antique setting.

"It's beautiful…" Rachel murmured, letting the memory of Finn's ring wash over her, grateful that it no longer came with any pain.

"Thank you. It was his grandmother's. When Bob realized he loved me, he wrote his mother, asking her to send him the ring. It's all the more significant because his grandfather bought it in Paris before he returned from World War One. "

"Oh my!' Rachel gushed.

"Wait here," Amélie said, and disappeared for a moment, returning with a small framed photograph. "The day of the wedding, our Cambodian nurses took me to a pool fed by the spring, where I bathed and they did my hair, which was short, like it is now, and I dressed in my cleanest set of fatigues, because I had no civilian clothes—they would have rotted away in the damp." She showed Rachel the photograph, depicting her and Bob, dressed in stained, worn, green fatigues and boots, standing together, smiling, looking impossibly young, Amélie holding a small bouquet of tropical flowers. Sodden thatched roof huts were in the background, puddles everywhere, against a dark green jungle backdrop. "A refugee who had been a mayor of a local village that had been overrun by the Khmer Rouge and a Buddhist monk married us," she said, dreamily. "It was simple, something beautiful to celebrate amidst all that human misery."

"That's so beautiful," Rachel said. It felt good to be sitting there with Amélie, and somewhat understanding how she felt when Bob asked her to marry him. She had never told anyone about Finn's proposal in detail-not even Carole-and even though this was Tom's _mother_ sitting across from her, she wondered if it would help talking about it with Amélie. Four years after Finn's death, there were still issues she needed to sort out, and it felt like she could trust Amélie Foley to at least listen.

"May I tell you about Finn's proposal?" she whispered. "I've never really talked about it with anyone, not even Tom, but I think I need to."

Amélie didn't look uncomfortable, but replied, "Only if you think you need to. That is so intimate a memory, and it surely must still hurt somehow."

"Yes, it hurts," Rachel said," but not for the reasons you might expect."

Amélie's eyebrow raised. "Then go ahead."

She told Amélie how he chose the auditorium, and originally wanted to recreate the setting of their first kiss. "Everything we did was steeped in symbolism: that stage, the first kiss, even things that we had said. Before our first kiss I told him he could kiss me if he wanted to, and it came to mean so much more than just the words strung together. Even the common theatrical expression 'break a leg' had deep meaning to us. Everything meant more than its face value. Being in love with him was like living in a world with heightened awareness that only he and I shared."

Amélie nodded, encouraging her to go on. Rachel felt so right, talking with her. She knew she wouldn't be judged for what she was to say next.

"Then he told me he had, basically, nothing in his life except me: no dream of playing football, no talents, no place to go other than staying in Lima, even the image of his father as a war hero had been dashed when his mother revealed that he had actually died of a drug overdose. The only thing he knew he had, the only inspiration in his life, was me. So he asked me to marry him."

"That is a lot of pressure, Rachel, for such a young girl. Did you say yes?"

Even four years later, it still hurt for her to say it: "Not right away. Oh Amélie, I thought it was crazy to get married so young."

At first Amélie showed no reaction other than just an encouraging nod. Her look softened considerably, however, when she could see the shame on Rachel's face.

"To my shame, I only accepted when I thought my own dreams had been dashed, when I didn't think I had gotten into NYADA, and had no backup plan."

Amélie shrugged. "But that is just timing and circumstances. It had nothing to do with the fact you both truly loved each other, _non_?"

"Yes. I knew I wanted to marry him, eventually. A lot happened after that, including a breakup, but we had reached a very good place right before he died." It was progress, she supposed, that she could talk about this now, four years later, without dissolving into tears.

"Then you need not feel any shame." His mother took both of Rachel's hands in hers. "It doesn't matter why he proposed, or why you accepted, as long as the ultimate fruit of that, a happy, stable marriage would have been the result. That would have happened, had he not passed away, right?" Even four years couldn't stop Rachel's tears then, as she just nodded.

"Every proposal has a love story. Your love story with Finn was touching and beautiful, and the only sad thing about it is that it was cut so short, through no fault of your own. But your love story with our son is beautiful and touching too. Bob and I admire how you care for each other."

"I love Tom," Rachel said, smiling, "With all my heart." Amélie returned the smile warmly.

"I'm glad. But I think you are fortunate also to have been loved by a beautiful man like Finn, who saw you as we see you. Let all your love stories strengthen and enrich you, Rachel. And enjoy their fruit." She stood up. "Speaking of which, let's have some breakfast—I can heat up some croissants, and we have real butter and fresh fruit. We can even eat on the patio—the sun is coming up! Let the men fend for themselves when they wake up, _non_? "

When Tom awoke later, around noon, she asked if they could take a walk on the beach after he ate. The sky was clear, perfect, with a cool offshore breeze. Rachel mentioned they had to be in Hermosa Beach earlier than they had planned. "Elena wants to take me to that bikini shop she likes before we leave for dinner." They were having dinner with some friends, Geoff Fielding and Elena Bosaic, then staying the night at their place.

"What's wrong with the one you have on?" Tom asked, grinning.

"Variety is the spice of life." He laughed, and they continued the walk, side by side.

"Tom?"

"Yes?"

"I want to name our first daughter Amélie."

She enjoyed his surprised, but very pleased look.

"What if we have a son first?"

"Then we'll have to keep trying."


	2. Chapter 2

The plan was to drive to Uncle Lyndon's place in Carmel Valley, spend a couple of days there, then a couple of days in San Francisco visiting Joanna and Hank, before finally heading to New York. They said their goodbyes to his mother and father, stopped by Geoff and Elena's place for a farewell brunch, then headed north, taking US 101 (instead of Pacific Coast Highway, to save time) to Salinas, then cutting west over the Laureles Grade into the valley itself. As it was, it took eight hours, and they arrived late that night at Lyndon's little bungalow, tucked away four miles up Carmel Valley Road.

Coming over the pass and beginning the steep grade into valley, Rachel had gasped at the sight: a full moon bathed the entire scene in a pale, ghostly light, and Tom smiled.

"I chose the timing just to catch this," he said, grinning. "We missed it last time; tomorrow night we're going to cruise Big Sur with the top down."

The low roar of the city was gone, replaced by a blessed stillness. Tom built a fire to ward off the slight chill in the air, and sat on the small couch, Rachel tucked next to him, with some wine as they unwound from the long drive. A small animal outside made a brief rustling noise.

The flames and the wine lulled her almost to sleep, but ended up summoning memories she could not suppress. She couldn't keep sadness from welling up as she remembered hurting Finn that first time, and how distraught he had been when she went to him after the opening night party. The joy of making love that night was overshadowed now by memories of the promises she made to him about his dreams, and how they would find them together. She had failed him, and now he was dead. If she had kept her promise, he would have found his dreams in New York, and never would have had that fatal encounter with the drunk driver on that lonely road.

The flush of emotion triggered a now-automatic response: Rachel reached out and took Tom's hand, her thumb rubbing his knuckles, sharing it with him, wordlessly, because he was her _person_ now, and they shared almost everything with each other.

It was almost seamless, this wordless transference of emotion. There was no need to ask what triggered it; the past two years had exquisitely tuned him to her moods, as she was to his. He could draw her from that special sadness as surely as she could cast away his writer's block. His arm drew her as close to him as he could, and his lips kissed the top of her head before he began to sing, slowly, so softly it was almost a whisper:

_**Spread your wings**_

_**Come on, fly awhile**_

_**Straight to my arms**_

_**Oh, little angel child**_

She reached her arm around, clinging to him, as he launched into Van Morrison's stream-of-consciousness lyrics:

_**You know you only**_

_**Lonely twenty-two story block**_

_**And if somebody, not just anybody**_

_**Wanted to get close to you**_

_**For instance, me, baby**_

_**All you gotta do**_

_**Is ring a bell**_

_**Step right up, step right up**_

_**And step right up**_

_**Ballerina**_

_**Grab it, catch it, fly it, sigh it.**_

The fire crackled, sending up a swirling cloud of sparks, like tiny red fireflies, and he kissed the top of her head again before continuing:

_**Well, I may be wrong  
But something deep in my heart tells me I'm right and I don't think so  
You know I saw the writing on the wall  
When you came up to me  
Child, you were heading for a fall  
But if it gets to you  
And you feel like you just can't go on  
All you gotta do  
Is ring a bell  
Step right up, and step right up  
And step right up  
Just like a ballerina  
Stepping lightly**_

Sadness drained away from her, like electrical current gone to ground, as he knew it would, because he loved her, because to love Rachel Berry was to know that music, and the love of music, was at her core. Strip away the ambition, her kind heart, and her love for those she cared about, and one found the music, warmly pulsing at her center, nourishing her soul, nourishing everything, eliminating pain.

Just as it did for him.

_**Alright, well it's getting late**_

_**Yes it is, yes it is**_

_**And this time I forget to slip into your slumber**_

_**The light is on the left side of your head**_

_**And I'm standing in your doorway**_

_**And I'm mumbling and I can't remember the last thing that ran through my head**_

_**Here come the man and he say, he say the show must go on**_

_**So all you gotta do**_

_**Is ring the bell**_

_**And step right up, and step right up**_

_**And step right up**_

_**Just like a ballerina, yeah, yeah**_

She was now peacefully asleep next to him, head on his shoulder. No need to move right yet. The fire and her body kept the chill away, easing the fatigue from the drive in the flickering light. Her scent mixed with the cedar smoke. Whatever sad memories that had emerged were gone. So he sat, deep in thought, about her, about the musical, about his life. He even thought about Finn, how at times he felt he knew him, and how he wished he had met him at least once.

When the fire was reduced to embers Tom picked Rachel up and carried her to bed, chuckling at how odd it felt removing someone else's shoes. Leaving her socks on, he gently pulled off her jeans, but left the flannel shirt. He thought he woke her when slipping into bed himself, but she only rolled over to face him, pulling close, then settling again.

He thought he heard an owl as he drifted off himself.

**XXXxxx**

She knew that moonlight was simply reflected sunlight, holding no warmth at all, yet, even in September, sitting in the Triumph with the top down, all she needed was a light sweater over her tank top, as if the ghostly light warmed the world for them. It glistened on the black waters of the Carmel River as Tom drove them down the valley, headed for Pacific Coast Highway, and the vistas of the Big Sur.

Rachel was content; they had enjoyed a wonderful late dinner at a Californian/Mexican place they had discovered the last time they were here. Her tummy was full of mushroom and poblano enchiladas, and she was with the man she loved, on the open road in a magical landscape. She loved the chaparral of coastal California, its brown hills dotted with the black-green scrub oaks that covered them, rolling down to the sea, and the fantastical shapes of the trees sculpted by the constant wind off the ocean. In the moonlight, under the stars bright enough not to be washed out, it looked hauntingly peaceful.

They reached the junction with Pacific Coast Highway. Straight ahead lay the city of Carmel-By-the-Sea; to the right, Monterey. Tom headed left, south, towards the sparsely-populated Big Sur. As the Triumph picked up speed, its headlights cutting away at the darkness in front of them, Rachel looked over at Tom, his smiling face illuminated perfectly by the Moon, and she settled back in her seat, feeling the rush of the cool night air. There was something perfect about this feeling, about her love for him at that moment, that made her want him to just stop the car so she could kiss him. But she waited, patiently.

Soon the road began to wind, sinuously, drawing close to the edge of the world, where beyond lay a restless, glittering darkness, tossing and turning beneath her gaze and the eternal sky. He had wanted to give her this exquisite gift since they had met, and her heart nearly burst from the perfection of it all.

Tom said very little, seemingly just enjoying her pleasure at the beauty of this place, looking relaxed, elbow resting on the door, occasionally downshifting on the curves.

"Ah", he said, turning off the highway onto a gravel track. It led to the edge of a rocky point, from which they could see the 714-foot tall Bixby Creek bridge further down the highway, and, below them, the rocks and the roiling surf. Rachel got out of the car almost in a trance. Her lungs filled with fresh, briny air; her ears with the murmuring of the moonlit waves. The ghostly coastline left her speechless. She trembled as Tom's arms reached around from behind and pulled her close. She felt his hair rippling in the breeze against her face, his lips kissing her cheek.

"This is perfect," she murmured, "Perfect."

"It's one of my favorite places in all the world," he said. "With my favorite person."

He turned her around to face him. She felt light-headed, because in the crystalline moonlight , with his wild, curly hair, he looked like a character straight out of _Wuthering Heights_.

"In a few days we'll be heading cross-country."

She nodded, her throat dry now, and her heart beating faster.

"But I'd like to start another journey." A large wave dashed itself against the rocks, far below. "And I want this place to be the starting point."

She was about to say something—anything—to test if this was real, but he took her hands in his before she could speak. His right hand also held a tiny, quilted cloth bag.

"Will you marry me, Rachel, so we can start our journey together?"

His voice was strong and sure. And he didn't get on one knee, but then, he didn't dress like a NYADA student either. And he was holding this bag, and she knew what it contained, and she reached for it, unafraid, and without hesitation. The ring inside looked old, very old, and the gold band, wider than she had expected, was inscribed with a delicate pattern which, in the moonlight resembled the intertwined tendrils of a plant. The stone was large, brilliant even in the cold light, unobtrusively set in a raised gold turret. She'd never seen anything like it.

"My God, Tom, it's beautiful…" Then she realized he had asked her the question, and she almost giggled in embarrassment. Despite her anxiety back in San Clemente, she knew what her answer would be. "Yes, of course I'll marry you." And she felt the ring sliding on her finger as he bent down to kiss her.

"The ring belonged to my _grand-maman_", he said, overjoyed. "And like all engagement rings, has a story."

"Tell it to me," Rachel whispered, pressed against him. He was her storyteller, after all. He wrapped his arms around her again and she was grateful for the warmth now.

"_Grand-papa_ was a courier pilot for the Free French in North Africa during the Second World War. His escape from Paris to Marseilles and then to Algeria was straight out of _Casablanca_, barely catching the last train out before the Germans marched in. My grandparents had known each other since they were children in Paris, and he promised he would return and marry her when the Germans were gone. She promised to wait.

"One day he was wandering through the Casbah, the huge marketplace in Algiers, waiting to be sent to Alexandria to pick up some diplomatic pouches, when he saw a wizened old Arab selling jewelry at a tiny stall. _Grand-papa _looked over his merchandise, much of it fairly cheap, but then he saw this ring. Ah, said the merchant, you have good taste; this is a very special ring.

"Well, my grandfather was no fool, and he knew enough about the Casbah to take a merchant's claim with a grain of salt. So he picked up the ring and looked at it very carefully. It seemed out of place with the rest of the merchant's wares; its craftsmanship was far better. And he had seen the pattern on the band before."

Tom paused for a moment, because a huge wave had crashed on the rocks below, sending a delicately fine spray up the slope of the cliff, into their faces, and he closed his eyes, wanting to remember everything about this moment as well.

Rachel kissed him, tasting the salty spray on his lips. "Where had he seen it before?" she asked.

"He couldn't quite remember. It was hovering at the edge of memory. So he looked more closely. It was old, very old. Despite being made of gold, the band showed fine tarnish lines closely following the inscription patterns. The craftsmanship was exquisite. 'This ring doesn't come from here,' he told the merchant.

"The old Arab nodded. 'It was crafted in Spain, long ago, and worn by a beautiful woman, the true love of a Moorish prince.' It was then my grandfather remembered. He had visited Spain with his parents as a young boy, before the Civil War, and had seen a similar pattern on the walls of The Alhambra, the beautiful Moorish palace in Granada. If true, then the ring was over six-hundred years old. But he also realized this ring had somehow come into the possession of a wily Arab merchant in the Casbah, not exactly known for its ethical business practices."

"Was the merchant lying?" She had to know, entranced.

"_Grand-papa _didn't know. But he knew he wanted the ring. So he asked for a price. It was considerably more than he could afford. Before he could make a counter offer, however, the merchant asked him if the ring would be for his sweetheart. When my grandfather said yes, and that she was waiting for him, a world away in occupied Paris, where it would take winning a war to get back to her, the old man took pity, and said he would give him a discount if he told him the story of how he and my grandmother met. So he told the merchant how his grandfather was seven and his grandmother six when they met in his parent's garden during a party, and how they became friends when he told her a story about a magic rabbit that lived there."

So _that's_ where he gets his storytelling, Rachel thought. "So the merchant's discount was enough to enable your grandfather to buy the ring?"

Tom nodded. "The fact the merchant gave him the discount made him doubt the story behind it. For years he attempted to find out if the ring was authentic, and no one was able to confirm the story the old Arab told him, but, more importantly, no one was able to disprove it, either. Not that he or _grand-maman_ cared, of course."

"So the ring now has two confirmed love stories behind it," Rachel said, kissing him, "and maybe one, unconfirmed, story from the Middle Ages. I'm…honored, truly."

"I'm the one who is honored."

Already she thought she could feel the history of the ring. It had known the love of two young people torn apart by war, and may have been worn by a beautiful princess over six-hundred years ago. She wondered how many other love stories it knew. Even now, it was collecting new memories. _Their_ memories.

She was determined to make them good.

**A/N: lyrics are from "Ballerina", by Van Morrison, from the classic, hauntingly beautiful album, "Astral Weeks". Reviews are welcome!**


	3. Chapter 3

There was something about the light in northern New Mexico, a clarity, a purity to it, that Rachel had never experienced before. Altitude and aridity made everything seem to glow, especially at sunrise and sunset. She watched the snowy peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains from their hotel room, catching the last soft orange rays of the sun. Below the tree line, stands of aspens were turning color, swaths of pale yellow across the deep black-green ocean of pine. No wonder Santa Fe attracted artists, she thought. Tom said his family used to come and stay at a bed-and breakfast near Santa Fe that specialized in accommodations for amateur astronomers, taking advantage of the incredibly dark and clear night skies. A warmth came over her as she thought of him and this adventure they had started. He came out of the shower, a towel around his waist, another drying his hair.

"It's all yours, baby," he said.

She found him on the balcony when she was done, and put her arms around his waist. He turned to face her.

"Hubba-hubba." She wore a short black dress with a white jacket and heels, hair down around her shoulders.

"You don't look bad yourself, Foley." She smoothed the lapels of his simple black jacket over an open white shirt.

They were going to a showing at an art gallery in town, owned by the artist parents of an ex-NYADA-classmate of theirs, Ron Stevens. It wasn't far from the hotel, so they decided to take a leisurely stroll, enjoying the cool, dry, evening air.

Rachel had known Ron just before meeting Tom, and had told him the story about inviting Ron to The Arabica Diner for coffee, and scaring him off when he found out about Finn.

"So I might never have had a chance if you hit it off with Ron first?" Tom had asked, jokingly.

"Probably not. He's gorgeous."

Feeling playful on their stroll, Rachel, remembering that conversation, brought up the fact Sandrine had appeared at their engagement party in San Clemente.

**XXXxxxx**

After Tom proposed, they had decided to drive back to San Clemente first and announce their engagement before going back to New York. His parents threw a party a couple of days later (even Joanna and Hank flew down for it), and Rachel's dads said they would throw one for the eastern faction. Fortunately, Rachel and Tom had factored in two weeks of extra time before they had to begin working on the musical.

Rachel was deep in a conversation with Ted when the doorbell rang, and a tall, dark-haired woman entered, wearing a fashionable black sweater coat and boots. She would have fit in perfectly in New York. Amélie rushed over, gathering her in a hug, and kissing her on both cheeks. "_Bonsoir_ Sandrine! _Bienvenue_!" She immediately dragged Sandrine (who smiled adorably at the attention) over to Rachel. Equally adorably, Amélie forgot she was speaking French: "_Sandrine Breguet_, _il s'agit de Tom fiancée, Rachel Berry_."

Fortunately, Sandrine extended her hand, saying, "Hi Rachel, I'm Sandrine. Congratulations, I'm so pleased to finally meet you!"

Before Rachel could answer, Tom's father was hugging Sandrine and taking her coat. She was wearing a nice short blue dress, similar to Rachel's red one. The two women laughed at the similarity, and then Sandrine was hugging Tom, the two of them murmuring something in French. When they pulled apart, he ran over and put his arm around Rachel, saying, "What did I tell you?"

Sandrine laughed. "Tom, go tell your family Rachel and I will be back in a bit." She grabbed two champagnes and breezed past Rachel, saying, "Come with me".

They went outside to the patio and commandeered two Adirondack chairs and a table, but before they sat down, Sandrine took Rachel's left hand. "I just had to see the ring," she said, "after he told me the story behind it." A wistful look. "I wonder if that story about the wife of the Moorish prince is true."

"Me too." Rachel couldn't help but wonder what else Tom had told her.

"I can't believe I was in town at the same time you both were," Sandrine said, as they sat down. She looked at Rachel intently. "You look exactly as Tom said." She, on the other hand, looked quite different from how Tom described her—even from her pictures. "Beautiful in a bookish way" just didn't quite fit this chic, confident woman. Maybe becoming a Parisian had changed her. At any rate, she looked stunning.

Sandrine sipped her champagne and sighed. "We don't get sunsets like this in Paris."

"Or New York."

Both enjoyed the soft light of the sunset air. Sandrine stirred.

"Look," she said, leaning close, "By all rom-com standards we should be fighting by now." She glanced over her shoulder, back into the house. "I just wanted to launch a pre-emptive strike and say how happy I am for both of you."

"I'm not threatened by you, Sandrine, don't worry," Rachel said. "Tom loved me enough to handle my past; I love him enough to grant him the same respect." She sipped some champagne, and touched Sandrine's arm. "He loves you, in that open, pure way of his. And that's cool with me."

Rachel wasn't lying. Those old insecurities from high school were gone. Finn had taught her to finally trust her true instincts, not the gut reactions. She had completely understood Finn's love for her when she sang to him, or when they sang together, and when he gave her advice. That same feeling came over her when she performed Tom's music, or when she saw him drawing inspiration from her when composing. Her insecurities fled when she drew on those deeper feelings. She had learned to trust herself.

"I'm glad, Rachel. But I do have a confession to make."

"Oh?"

Sandrine looked somewhat embarrassed. "In our emails, we almost never discuss anything intimate between you and him. He respects the hell out of you."

"Almost?" Rachel raised one eyebrow, playfully.

"Yeah. But once he told me listening to you sing was even better than sex."

"Okay..." she chuckled, loving his sweetness.

"And I had been drinking wine, and asked him—only once, I promise—how his sex life was."

Whoah. "Did he answer?"

Sandrine smiled fondly. "He replied in typical Tom Foley fashion: 'I'm happier than I've ever been in my life. Take from that what you will.'"

"Ever the gentleman..." Rachel mused.

"He's always been like that. You should totally marry him." Her eyes flashed merrily.

Rachel laughed. "Thanks. I think I will."

She felt Sandrine's hand on her arm this time.

"Rachel, I cried when he told me about your Finn."

"I still don't know how Tom found the strength to deal with me back then."

"It's funny…" Sandrine glanced back to the house, where Tom could be seen through the kitchen window speaking with his father. "I remember when he wrote to tell me he was in love with you. He didn't know how you had the strength to let him in."

"That's easy. Tom seemed to _know_ what I was going through, and gave me the room to get where I needed to be. He made that seem easy, because he appears so laid-back, but I know he struggled at times with my sorrow, and Finn's legacy. He's only human, after all."

Sandrine nodded. "He never went into much detail about it, out of respect for you. All I know is that you were worth it to him." There was laughter from inside.

"I also know you make him happy. Tom will make you happy, too, believe me."

"Thanks, Sandrine, I truly appreciate that. But what about you? Tom says you have someone in your life."

Sandrine smiled. "Yes, Gérard. He's working on his PhD like I am."

"In French Literature?"

"_Non, la philosophie." _She naturally fell into French when thinking of him, making Rachel smile, adding, "_E__t il est magnifique_—I mean, he's gorgeous." She giggled.

By then it was time to rejoin the party. Sandrine gave her a hug. "I am being invited to the wedding, right?"

Rachel laughed. "Of course. Will you be able to bring Gérard too? "

"_Certainement!__" _

**XXXxxxx**

"Tom," Rachel asked, as they strolled along, "Did you really tell Sandrine that listening to my singing was better than sex?"

An embarrassed laugh. "Yeah, I did."

"Did you mean it?"

He pondered that potential minefield for a few steps.

"I decline to answer on the grounds that it is impossible to answer satisfactorily."

She chuckled, holding his arm tighter. "What do you mean? A simple "yes" or "no" will suffice."

"I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, lady. I'll have you know I'm an almost-married man."

"Are you, now?"

"Yes I am. And I know if I answer 'yes', you'll say 'So I'm not good in bed, is that it?' And If I answer 'no', you'll say I don't like your singing."

"Is that right?"

"Yes ma'am. My Daddy warned me about you women folk and your devious ways."

"Hmmm," Rachel mused, "Maybe you're smarter than you look."

And she kissed him.

The gallery was decorated in classic Pueblo style: reddish sandstone-colored walls, tapestries with Navajo and Hopi designs, and dark wooden ceiling beams. Most of the art inside consisted of local landscapes,-paintings and photographs- plus a section of beautiful sand paintings from some representative Pueblo tribes. Everything was beautifully lit and presented.

As they ordered glasses of red wine from the bar at the back, Rachel asked the bartender where the owners were. He pointed them out: a tall, elegantly-but- not-ostentatiously dressed couple chatting easily with some patrons in front of a large painting. "Let's go introduce ourselves," Rachel said, and, hand-in-hand, they crossed the room.

"Mr & Mrs Stevens? Pleased to meet you. We were classmates with Ron," Rachel said.

Melody and Jack Stevens smiled and shook hands as Rachel continued, "This is Tom Foley, and I'm Rachel Berry."

"Well, we're honored to have some of Ron's friends at our gallery," Melody said, "Are you actors as well?"

"We both work on Broadway. Tom is a composer, and I'm a singer and actress."

"Anything we might have seen?" Jack asked. "We saw several shows when Ron was at NYADA."

"Rachel was Fanny Brice in _Funny Girl_," Tom offered. "Ron was at NYADA then." Ron's parents looked impressed.

"We were going to see it, but we couldn't get tickets that night," Jack remembered. "It was one of the hot shows." Rachel blushed.

"Tom and I are working together on his new musical set for production early next year," Rachel added.

"Excellent!" Jack said, raising his wine glass. "_Salud_!"

Melody noticed the ring.

"Are you two married?"

"Engaged," Tom said, and Rachel smiled widely, relishing at how new it sounded.

"Congratulations!"

They chatted briefly about Ron. He was doing well off-Broadway, and Rachel mentioned she knew, and had good things to say about, the costume designer of his play. His parents looked proud. Eventually they excused themselves to attend to other guests, and Rachel and Tom began enjoying the art.

She watched him move easily among the other patrons. He didn't pretend to know anything about the visual arts, so his conversations with them didn't have that ring of pretension they picked up in snippets as they wandered about the room. Nor did he show any signs of boredom. On the contrary; the sand paintings fascinated him, and he spent most of the time asking the artists questions on the symbolism. The artists told them that the ones here for sale were not completely authentic: only medicine men made authentic ones, because they were usually part of a sacred ceremony. Commercial sand paintings often contained deliberate errors so as not to debase their original purpose. Tom particularly liked that idea. Rachel could see him filing the information away for future use. She could see creative connections being made, and already felt the familiar warmth of anticipation.

For her part, Rachel loved some of the more intricate designs. They resembled the abstract patterns seen on Persian rugs, how they dazzled the eye. Her dads once told her that when she was a baby, she would spend long periods of time staring at the design in the rug in front of the fireplace. They said looking at complex designs helped babies build neural connections in the brain.

"Wow," Tom said. He was standing in front of a large, detailed painting of a high canyon wall, its red sandstone covered in rust-colored images that looked like ghostly souls, hundreds of them. He was transfixed. "I've been there," he said, turning to her. "I hiked down that canyon with my brothers a few years ago." The artist, a tall, dark-haired, well-dressed man, came over.

"That's the Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon, part of Canyonlands National Park, right?"

"Yes," the man said, clearly pleased.

"That's exactly what it looks like. This could have been a photograph. Rachel, it's a fantasic place! Some of those figures are as big as I am."

"Thank you. I'm Daniel Coldstream," the man said. "Have you walked the whole canyon?"

"I have, yes. Daniel, this is my fiancée Rachel Berry. I'm Tom Foley." They shook hands all round. He had two other paintings on display,from around the Southwest, equally impressive. He claimed some Zuni ancestry.

"Tom, could you please get us refills on wine?" Rachel asked, and as Tom took her glass and left, she winked at Daniel. He leaned forward, interested. "May I have your card? I'd like to purchase this painting as a wedding present for Tom." Daniel chuckled. "I'll tell the owners later tonight. It will make a wonderful gift—he obviously loved the place. It's very beautiful—you should visit."

She noticed his card had a New York City address. "We live there, too," she said.

Daniel smiled. "My wife and I teach art at the Pratt Institute's School of Art and Design in Manhattan." He was delighted to find out she and Tom worked on Broadway. He had grown up in Santa Fe.

Tom returned with the wine, and they were chatting pleasantly when she felt a tug on her dress. Looking down, she came face-to-face with a beautiful little girl in a turquoise dress, eyes black as coal, with dark straight hair and olive skin.

"Do you like Daddy's paintings?" she asked, seriously. "I do." Her voice had a clarity unusual for a child so young, Rachel noted, figuring her to be about four.

"Yes, I like them very much" she replied, handing Tom her glass, squatting so her face was level with the girl's. "I'm Rachel, and this is Tom. What's your name?"

The child looked up to her father, who nodded for her to go on.

"I'm Kelea. I'm four-and –a-half."

"What a pretty name."

"It means sparrowhawk. What does your name mean?"

Rachel looked up to Daniel in delight.

"My name means a girl sheep."

Kelea took that in for a moment, then her mouth twisted into a little half smile, a very familiar half-smile, as if harboring a secret, and Rachel felt as if her soul was brushed by something cold, something winged and cold.

"Are you okay?" Tom asked, worried. "All the color just drained out of your face."

"Yes," chimed in Daniel, helping her up since Tom's hands were full.

"I'm—I'm fine." Rachel smoothed her dress and gratefully took her glass from Tom. She took a sip and the dry red wine felt good as it warmed her chest.

"So you're four-and a half?" Rachel asked Kelea. "When's your birthday?" But, somehow, Rachel already knew.

"March 20th!" Kelea said proudly. "Right, Daddy?"

"That's right. You were born March 20th, 2013, in New York City," Daniel said.

Tom immediately took Rachel's hand, which was now trembling slightly.

"Kelea!" A woman's voice. "So here you are." A brown-haired woman with fair skin and green eyes appeared.

"I'm with Daddy and Rachel and Tom," Kelea answered.

"Okay, honey. Hi, I'm Julie Coldstream. I see you've met our daughter."

Rachel introduced herself and Tom, and when Tom and Daniel got involved in a discussion of the Canyonlands area, with Kelea holding her father's hand, paying close attention, she took the opportunity to talk to Julie.

"Kelea is adorable. She told us her birthday was March 20th. This may seem like a strange question, but what time was she born?"

"Nine-forty-seven pm. Why, are you an astrologer?"

"No, just curious." More than curious, actually. Rachel was feeling light-headed, so she interrupted Tom and Daniel's conversation to say she wasn't feeling well after all, and could they head back the hotel? She squatted down and looked into Kelea's eyes, which now held something Rachel couldn't fathom.

"It was very nice to meet you, Kelea."

"Bye, Rachel and Tom!" A wave, with that half-smile again.

It was all she could do to hold off further trembling until they were outside.

"What's going on, baby?" Tom asked, concerned now.

She swallowed hard, and took his arm. Even with the jacket she felt cold, as if every hair on her body was standing up.

"I don't know what this means, if anything—but that little girl was born the moment Finn was pronounced dead."

Tom's eyes widened. "Really?" He quickly looked behind him at the gallery. She nodded, dabbing her eyes with Tom's handkerchief. At first she thought he was upset, but then he turned around again, holding her gaze.

The concern had vanished, wiped away by the light of an unknown serenity.


	4. Chapter 4

Rachel sat down on a sidewalk bench, unnerved from meeting Kelea. But she was encouraged by Tom's expression of wonder.

"You know, Rachel," he said, sitting next to her, resting on his elbows, "some people believe that a soul becomes reincarnated in another body at the moment of the death of the old body." She felt another chill as he continued. "The soul passes from one physical expression to the next instantaneously."

"So…are you saying…" She spoke slowly because it was so hard to fathom. "…Finn's soul resides in a four-year-old girl now?"

"I don't know, baby, honestly." Tom was looking at the sidewalk in front of him. "But that was a hell of a coincidence in there."

"You don't know the half of it. She smiles exactly the way he did, too. And when I looked in her eyes, there was something, something that felt like she was holding a secret."

"A secret?"

"Well, maybe not quite a secret, but for one brief instant I got the sense she knew me, maybe subconsciously." When Tom looked up, however, she shook her head. "No, I probably imagined that. I probably even imagined the smile."

She handed Tom his handkerchief back (how she loved his habit of always carrying a clean one), because her tears had stopped. Imagination had gotten the better of her, surely.

Tom didn't seem to accept her resignation.

"You don't know that," he said.

"Well, think about it, Tom." Rachel was analyzing everything now. "If his soul has resided in Kelea for four years, then what was all my sensing of his presence after he died, then, if not a product of my own grief?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "But what if it's true?" That look of serenity came back. "What if our coming here and meeting her was not a coincidence? She even lives in New York! I mean, what if this was his way of telling you he was okay, that his karma had been good, and that his next life reflected that? "

An old memory suddenly brought a soft smile to her face.

**XXXXxxxxx**

_They once had a secret lake. Well, not a whole lake, but a small arm of a larger one. It was shaped like a teardrop, whose narrow end was the point where it connected to the bigger section. A mature stand of oak trees screened it from view from the rest of the lake, and, at the far, rounded end, a small wooden dock jutted out into its surprisingly deep water. Even at the height of summer, the little arm wasn't a popular spot with the kids, probably because the only way to get to it was via a long, rough path through tick-haunted woods. But she was diligent about insect-repellent and sunscreen, so they often had the whole thing to themselves. _

_Finn and Rachel were sitting cross-legged on that dock, enjoying the sun and the warm, thick air, beating with the sounds of insects, lazily still. Even the birds were quiet. It was easy to believe the heavy air was keeping the water's surface still, broken only by the tiny ripples of water striders and the occasional fish, or when they dipped their feet into its coolness. _

_Neither spoke. Finn moved to dip his feet in the water again, and stared at the ripples. Rachel looked down at the sweat beads on the skin between her breasts. She was wearing her blue bikini with white polka dots, the one she bought to match the dress she wore when she told Finn she would never break up with him, and wondered if maybe there was a thing as too much symbolism. After all that had happened since that moment, leading up to that kiss at Nationals only two weeks ago, maybe it would have been easier to forget why she bought it and just enjoy the fact that he loved her in polka dots. Rachel wanted to just let herself enjoy the reconciliation, but it still hurt remembering those lonely months, just as he still hurt from what she did. And there was still the question of what was going to happen when they graduated. Part of her wanted to just be a teenage girl and enjoy loving him in the present, but she was Rachel Berry and knew, deep down, that her being in New York would prove difficult for Finn to accommodate. Eventually though, the warm sun and Finn's shirtless form nearby gave the teenage girl the edge. She wanted him to kiss her. But he spoke first. _

"_Do you remember those stakeouts we went on?" He was still staring at the water. _

"_Of course," she said. _

"_I asked you to explain karma to me." _

"_Yes…?" She let her feet dip into the water. He followed her ripples, and, without looking at her: _

"_Am I a good person?" _

_She was thrown by the question._

"_What? Of course you are!" _

"_I hope so." He looked thoughtful. "I don't want to be reincarnated as a slug or something gross." She smiled faintly, but he was actually serious. _

"_Baby, what brought that on?" Rachel shuffled closer to him and put her arm around his waist, her head on his shoulder. His scent seemed intensified by the sweat. A fish flopped at the surface of the lake. _

"_I wish I was more forgiving." _

"_You forgave me," Rachel murmured, now really wanting just a kiss instead of dredging that up again, especially not here._

"_I didn't treat you well before I did, finally," he said. "And I don't think I'll ever forgive Jesse for what he did to you." _

"_You forgave Quinn. And Puck." Pointing this out hurt even more, so she touched his cheek, eager to lighten this burden he seemed to be carrying. _

"_Finn, good people make mistakes, and bad people don't spend any time wondering if they're good." _

"_I just want to be remembered as a good man," he said, "like my father." _

"_Oh, baby, you will, I know you will." She pulled his face down for a kiss, and, relieved, felt his mood finally brightening. And something else as well: this perfect Ohio summer day, like a warm compress, began easing some of the old hurts away. Even her anxiety about the future diminished, as inconsequential as the haze. _

_It was the perfect summer for a teenage girl in love. _

**XXXXxxxxx **

"He once worried about his karma, and what he might end up being in his next life," Rachel mused. "He worried about how he would be remembered."

Tom just smiled, letting her feel.

"If all this is true, then Finn did good, right? With his karma?"

He nodded. "He's certainly remembered with love."

"So what are we supposed to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, should we become part of the girl's life? Become friends with her parents? Won't knowing why we're doing this creep them out?"

His expression didn't change, much to her relief. It was times like these that Tom showed his quality: the Ron Stevens's of the world would have run away screaming by now.

"What do you want to do?"

"Help me out here, Tom, geez! What do I _want_ to do? I want to freaking adopt her and raise her as my own_, that's_ what I want to do! Would you please talk some patented Tom Foley sense into me?"

The twinkle in her eyes made him laugh, even though he knew she needed his input. He kissed her first, however, noticing that her body responded, and felt relaxed.

"I think we need to take some time," he said, holding her tight, "because what might seem right at this moment could prove disastrous later." She clung to him, then, trusting his judgment.

"Thank you," she whispered, "You're right. I mean, what if she ever found out? What kind of burden could that be on a child, knowing that we saw her as not just herself?"

"Yes, exactly," he said, still holding her, and murmured "Even though I know I would feel the same way had I lost you."

Both fully knew they were tabling the issue for now, and that it would not go away. But they were young, soon to be married, and on a grand adventure. They stood up.

"I'm famished," Tom said. "Let's eat."

They passed a small jewelry store on the way to the restaurant, and Rachel dragged him inside, wanting to look at wedding bands.

"Oh my God, Tom look at this set!"

It consisted of two simple gold bands. The man's was wider, which wasn't a surprise, and Tom had said he wanted something simple. The width of the woman's, however, was slightly narrower than most they had seen, which is exactly what Rachel wanted. "I don't want it drawing attention from the engagement ring when I wear them together." He agreed, when she tried it on, that it seemed to complement the older ring perfectly. He also enjoyed watching Rachel's pleasure at the owner's wide-eyed appreciation of it as well. The jeweler, a small, elegantly dressed man in his fifties named Morris, asked if she would mind taking it off so he could examine it better with his glass.

Turning it over in his hand, carefully examining the stone and the setting, he began muttering, "This is old, and I mean _very_ old—pre-1800's, without a doubt." More turning and closer inspection. "It's been cleaned and reset, a few times, but I've never seen exquisite engraving like this. What is it?"

"My grandfather bought it in Algiers during World War II," Tom offered. "He told my grandmother that the merchant said it came from Spain." Morris nodded, still turning it under his glass. "_Moorish_ Spain." The turning stopped.

"Are you serious?"

Tom and Rachel both nodded.

"I don't think I've ever examined something that old," he said. "Have you had it appraised?"

"Yes," Tom said, "And it's insured. But nobody has ever been able to establish its actual age, so its value may be far more than we think."

"Indeed," Morris said, looking one last time. "Would you mind if I took some photographs? I may never have examined something from that period, but I know someone who has."

"Who?" Rachel asked. "Maybe this person can tell us something."

A slight shadow passed over the man's face. "My ex-wife, Ginny Weisman. She teaches Art History at Bard College in upstate New York. Her specialty is antique jewelry. We used to own this shop together. I'll send her the photos and let you know what she thinks."

"Your ex-wife? I hope it's not too much trouble," Rachel said. The man smiled softly. "No trouble. She'll be pleased with the challenge."

"We could even show her personally when we get home, if she likes," Tom said, relishing the idea of taking the Triumph upstate.

"I imagine she'll probably want to see it, yes."

They settled on buying the wedding bands, and the jeweler agreed to hold them until a wedding date was set, and engraving could be done. He went in the back to get his camera, and Rachel and Tom browsed the store, holding hands. Tom stopped suddenly at one case, and when the owner emerged, he asked to see a particular piece, a gold necklace, with what looked like a small, bejeweled, spoked wheel. At its center was a tiny yin/yang symbol.

"What is it, Tom?" Rachel asked. "It's beautiful."

Tom dangled it in front of her. "It's a Dharma Wheel," he said. "Among other things, it represents the karmic cycle of birth, death, and rebirth." He smiled gently. "After today, I thought you might want a reminder."

Touched deeply, she smiled. "You're a beautiful man, Tom Foley." Looking over at Morris, she added, "I think I'd better marry this guy."

Morris, of course, agreed completely.

"I'm so glad we came to Santa Fe," she said at dinner. They were enjoying delicious green corn tamales and an excellent Mexican beer called Bohemia that Rachel had discovered over the summer. The good food and Tom's soothing personality had improved her mood considerably.

"I was thinking," Tom said, "when we're married next year, that we buy some of Daniel's paintings. "

She raised her eyebrows, smiling inwardly. "Why? Do you like them that much?"

"Actually, yes. But I thought it would be a way of establishing a connection, even if it's purely a business one, where we could possibly keep tabs on Kelea's life without being intrusive."

"We could offer them tickets to our show," Rachel offered up as well.

"Perfect. With backstage passes!"

The Dharma Wheel felt warm against her skin (she had insisted on wearing it right away).

"How does karma work?" she asked, fingering the necklace. " I mean, can one person's karma be influenced by another's? "

"Do you have an example in mind?"

Tom wasn't a Buddhist scholar by any means, she knew that, and thus did not expect him to have the answer necessarily, but one thing she had come to adore about him was his willingness to talk with her on almost any subject, without tying to bullshit his way through. He was completely comfortable admitting if he didn't know anything about a subject.

"Well, the idea of positive and negative karma implies some way of measuring it, like in physics." She remembered reading about the ancient Egyptians in middle school, after seeing a production of the musical _Aida_. "The ancient Egyptians believed the hearts of the dead were weighed in judgment against the feather of _Ma'at. _Does karma have something similar? _" _

She patiently watched him give the idea careful thought before answering. This was typical of him. He fiddled with his food, took a bite of tamale, a sip of beer.

"As I understand it, there really isn't any exact metric, as in physics, or weight, as in a feather. Karma is measured in terms of its effects, the levels of suffering it generates. Wholesome karma produces less suffering than unwholesome karma, and the effects are not always immediate—they can sometimes take several lifetimes to bear fruit." He paused. "I'm really not an expert. We can ask my Dad, I'm sure he'd know."

Rachel nodded thoughtfully. "The reason I ask, " she said, "is that all this has started me thinking about my own karma, and how it might be entangled with Finn's and yours." Something occurred to her then, and her voice became excited. "I mean, I suffered as a result of Finn's death, and I thought maybe that was my own unwholesome karma, as you put it, that caused his death in the first place. Does that make any sense?"

"Sure," he said. "But what is the state of your suffering now?"

"Well, I'm not suffering now. I'm happy." She was confused; it all seemed out of reach in terms of resolution. "How can anybody untangle it?"

"I don't think we, as individuals, can, because the actual effects of our actions are not predictable in any exact way, as in a physics equation. We may never even live to see the end results." At that he smiled, and took her hand. "All we can do is be as mindful of our actions as we can, knowing that wholesomeness bears happiness as its fruit."

"Like adopting the Golden Rule?"

"Yeah, exactly," he said, pleased.

The walk back to the hotel was leisurely and incredibly pleasant. The thinner air seemed to etch the shadows thrown by the orange streetlights in sharp relief; its coolness causing them to hold on to each other more closely; its dryness storing an energy, like electricity, that seemed to draw unlikely events together.

As she unconsciously fingered the Dharma Wheel, the very air felt charged with possibility.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: We need to pause briefly in this story to step back to another place, another time, and another world. **

Jamila loved when Hamza was home and not dressed for battle. The white linen robe and turban softened his appearance, which, even under the best of circumstances was intense: his face was thin and angular, with dark, flashing eyes and close beard, and a sharp nose that gave him the fierce visage of a desert hawk.

These days were not the best of circumstances. The Emirate of Granada was the last sovereign state in Moorish Spain that hadn't fallen to the Christians. The border was constantly being pressured by the knights of the Spanish King Alphonzo, and Hamza frequently led his men to counter the threat. And when he was home, well… Jamila would often find him on the balcony, staring northward, deep in thought.

He was there now as she entered the room, bearing a silver tray of dates, figs, and coffee, all his favorites.

"Let the servants do this for you, Jamila," he often told her, knowing full well she preferred to do it herself. She would have done it even if forbidden, because he loved her so much he could deny her nothing. That love was not misplaced: she was as intelligent as she was beautiful, and he heeded her counsel. Ever since he had met Jamila, it was said, Hamza Abencerrage had not been beaten in battle, and the central northern border under his command had been stable for ten years. His father even held off pressuring him to have more wives, despite the political advantages such marriages could bring, because Hamza, everyone in the palace of the Alhambra knew, loved only one woman, and would never have another in his bed.

She sat at a small wooden table and poured the coffee, counting on its aroma to coax him from his troubles for a while.

"Come, eat," she said. He finally turned and came to the table. His face looked tired, but brightened as he sat at the table and reached for a luscious, purple fig. She watched him take a bite and almost sigh in contentment.

"What is troubling you?" Jamila asked him, sipping at her coffee. It was black and strong, as both of them liked it. "You have been home only three days, and need rest. I know you have barely slept."

He smiled slightly, arching his eyebrows. "Do you pretend to sleep beside me in order to keep watch on my habits?"

"I know everything about you." She took a date from the tray and bit into it daintily, savoring its rich, honey-like sweetness. A warm spring breeze came in off the balcony, teasing her lustrous black hair, and ruffling the long sleeves of her saffron-yellow silk _jubba_. She tried smiling to encourage him.

For a few moments the only sounds were the delicate crunch of the fig's tiny seeds as he chewed.

"The situation in the north, in Iznájar, is not good," he finally admitted. Iznájar was in Hamza's sector of the border.

"But you were just there, and you drove the Spanish off," she protested. He had a habit of playing down his abilities.

"Militarily, it is stable; politically, it is not."

She knew what that meant; they had talked about it before. The Muslim kingdom, while still wealthy and powerful, needed alliances with local rulers to maintain enough manpower to defend the border. The problem was keeping their loyalty, especially since many, sensing how the wind was blowing, were converting to Christianity. Without firm political alliances, the military situation could not remain stable. And the best way to ensure that loyalty, Jamila realized glumly, was to bind a family's fate with the Muslim state via marriage. And Hamza was the only one of the Emir of Granada's sons with only one wife. Amal and Bilal both had wives from politically expedient marriages.

"Your father wants you to take another wife," Jamila said.

"Yes." He wasn't able to look at her, now, but held her hand tightly across the table.

"Hamza…" He finally turned around, revealing the anguish, her heart breaking more for him more than for herself. She was a woman after all, and knew her lot in life.

She also realized she had been blessed. True, their marriage had been arranged, but Jamila and Hamza had known each other since they were children, playing together in the fragrant gardens of the Alhambra palace, enjoying games of hide-and-seek among its many columns, and falling in love gazing upon the great city of Granada beneath them. Jamila was sixteen when he married her, also a blessing; she knew of girls being married at the age of twelve and sometimes younger, out in the provinces, to much older men they barely knew.

"It's Juzef, is it not? His daughter, Aixa?" Juzef Aben Taxfin was the Alcayde of Iznájar, in charge of its garrison. "Surely his loyalty is not at issue?" Taxfin came from a noble family that had once served in the court at Córdoba, the capital of _Al-Andalus_-Moorish Spain- before it fell to the Christians over one hundred years earlier.

"Juzef is not the man his father was, Jamila." Hamza was bitter. "I can see the weakness in his eyes, just as his commanders do. My father feels having his family tied to the crown will keep him in line."

"What do you feel, Hamza?" Her voice was gentle.

"I can't trust my feelings here, my love," he said. "I have no desire to marry anyone else, you must know that! But that is my heart talking; in terms of my responsibilities, I need to be able to listen to my head. And my father."

"And Aixa? Have you met her?"

"Yes, a couple of times in Iznájar, at dinner with her family."

"What is she like? Is she beautiful?"

Hamza allowed himself to smile. "She is but a girl, thirteen! Too young yet to be beautiful. She is well-mannered, as far as I could tell. We only spoke a few words of greeting."

"She will be terrified," Jamila said, then broke his heart: "Promise you will be as gentle with her as you were with me."

"I _loved_ you!" His voice was fierce. "I can never _love_ this…girl!"

"And you can never tell her that," she said sternly. "Aixa will be as much your wife as I am. And that demands respect. You will allow her the dignity befitting her position." She had to make him understand. "She will come to know you do not love her on her own," Jamila said, "because you are incapable of deceit."

"I cannot do this to her, or to you," Hamza said, and Jamila shook her head sadly.

"Listen, my love. Everything we have depends on keeping the Christians at bay. You know that. I know that. And Aixa will eventually come to recognize this marriage as essential, too." She forced a brave smile. "She may never have your heart, but she will have your children, as will I again. We will raise them together, like sisters."

A small, reluctant smile came over his face as well, and they finished the meal in silence.

That night, the fate of the thirteen-year-old girl weighed heavily on both of them. A slight chill still remained in the air, so a small fire burned in the bedroom, as Jamila snuggled against her husband, feeling his heartbeat and slow breathing, enjoying the extra warmth his body provided. Hamza had promised her he would honor Aixa as she requested, which Jamila truly appreciated, but she also knew Aixa would only share his bed to conceive their children, and never, ever share his heart. Jamila grieved for a girl who would grow up in a world of privilege, yet never know the simple love she herself enjoyed. It was well-known, of course, that wives in loveless marriages often found solace by taking a lover. And Jamila knew that Hamza would not object, as long as the affair was kept discreet and childless, so she made a mental note to send her wise old lady-in-waiting, Fahima, to instruct her in _'azl (_coitus interruptus) and other forms of contraception.

That night Hamza also promised Jamila they would start trying for another child, now that she was ready. This brought joy to her heart, dispelling, for just a moment, the grief for their precious Ahmed, who had entered the world sweet, dark-haired and perfect, only to leave it three days later in his sleep, borne away , she fervently believed, in the arms of an angel to paradise. She didn't know what she would have done without Hamza's support, that simple, steadfast love that she had known almost all her life, even before she knew what love was. She had heard tales of men blaming their wives for the deaths of children, and even stories of women blaming themselves. Hamza did nothing more than share the grief with her, spending a month in Malaga on the coast, simply holding her as she cried, and weeping secretly on his own (or so he thought. She knew everything about him). There was nothing he wouldn't do for her, he said, and she believed him. And she believed in him, as well, and in his sense of duty.

Most of all, she loved him for his decency. In a world in which there was little love lost between Muslim and Christian, Hamza had acquired a reputation for honor and mercy. In battle he was feared, having forsaken the light scimitar for a heavier, straight sword against the heavily armored Christian knights. Outside of Iznájar once, he wounded and bested a young Spanish prince, Diego de Montoya of Castile, taking him prisoner. Traditionally, such a prisoner would have been held for ransom or exchange with a Muslim prisoner of equal rank. However, as he ordered Diego to be treated for his wound, Hamza found out that he was to have been married within the week. The young man was beside himself in despair. Hamza decided to allow Diego to parole himself to reach home in time for the wedding, promising to return afterwards. He even sent his personal physician to accompany the Spanish prince and care for the wound. Diego kept his word and returned, along with his young wife, whose father, in gratitude, had sent with the ransom. Hamza and Jamila threw a feast for the newlyweds in the Alhambra the night before releasing them, and everyone forgot the hatred and animosity for at least a little while.

Hamza once told Jamila that she inspired him to be a good man. She had laughed, embarrassed, saying it was he who inspired her. That fact was, the love they shared inspired both of them. It fed their hopes and dreams, and bolstered their courage and determination. It nurtured their sensitivities, like the soil of a beloved garden. She knew this man, the only one she had ever loved. That was why she knew Hamza abhorred what was about to happen with Aixa. The last thing he wanted, Jamila clearly saw, was to condemn this girl, from the very beginning of her womanhood, to a loveless marriage. Yet it was out of his control; he was as bound by his duty as he was to his heart.

She kissed the beautiful, unique ring he had ordered made especially for her by the finest goldsmiths in Granada, wondering how all of this would play out. Sleep finally came, leaving her hope, hope that lay in the simple fact that her husband wanted to be a good man.


	6. Chapter 6

If Rachel and Finn could have been said to have a song, it would have to have been "Faithfully." No other song ever came close to describing their feelings for each other, and was even somewhat prophetic, considering how the last months of their love affair turned out. Rachel and Tom, on the other hand, didn't seem to have a "song", much to the surprise of anyone who knew them.

"What the hell?" Santana grumbled. "Two musical theatre geeks without a song? It's unnatural, I tell ya." She also forbade them from using one of Tom's compositions "on general principles."

It was difficult to explain, even to each other, not that either of them actually worried about it. Perhaps their lives were so completely absorbed in music that they didn't need a song, you know? Their life together was a song, in a sense. At least, that's what Rachel thought. Tom simply shrugged and said he had no idea why they didn't have a song, did it matter?

There was a song that they both enjoyed singing together in the car, however, especially on long drives: Arcade Fire's "Reflektor." Tom had discovered the album of the same name when researching the Orpheus legend for _Don't Look Back. _The story of Orpheus and Eurydice was the theme of the record, and the band had been influenced by the music and story in the film _Black Orpheus_, which he and Rachel had seen when they first met. The strong, disco-like beat made "Reflektor" a great road song. Both of them loved singing this verse:

_**Now, the signals we send, are deflected again**_

_**We're so connected, but are we even friends?**_

_**We fell in love when I was nineteen**_

_**And now we're staring at a screen**_

_**Entre la nuit, la nuit et l'aurore**_

_**Entre le royaume des vivants et des morts**_

_**If this is heaven**_

_**I need something more**_

_**Just a place to be alone**_

_**Cause you're my home **_

Rachel also loved another song on the album, "It's Never Over (Hey Orpheus!)", often singing the lyrics as a warm up for rehearsals:

_**Hey, Orpheus!**_

_**I'm behind you**_

_**Don't turn around**_

_**I can find you**_

_**Just wait until it's over**_

_**Wait until it's through**_

_**And if I call for you**_

_**Oh, Orpheus!**_

_**Just sing for me all night**_

_**We'll wait until it's over**_

_**Wait until it's through **_

These days, having someone to sing with in the car again was reason to be grateful enough.

**XXXxxxx**

After Santa Fe, Rachel and Tom pushed northward into Colorado and then Wyoming. High on a bare, windswept ridge in The Bighorn Mountains, at the sacred Medicine Wheel, Rachel left a small, beaded leather pouch containing shreds of tobacco, an offering in Finn's memory.

They witnessed the shimmering apparition of the Northern Lights, for the first time in their lives, just outside of Bismarck, North Dakota, and sang the lyrics to Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" together at the tops of their lungs while driving that fabled road in Minnesota. Still in Minnesota, Rachel also suggested stopping at Pipestone National Monument, the site of ancient quarries that Native Americans from all over had worked for centuries, carving its soft, unique stone into pipes. It was a place so sacred that all tribal differences, including wars and blood feuds, were set aside there. The world needed a place like that, she said.

She bought him a steak at Gene and Georgetti's, the oldest steakhouse in Chicago, just to see the delight on his face, though he insisted that it was her in his favorite dress that made him drool. They would be in Lima the next day, in time to freshen up for the engagement party. As they got ready for bed, she looked over the guest list her dads sent her.

"Tom! Puck's going to be there!" He had just gotten out of the Air Force, her dads said. She hadn't seen Puck since Finn's memorial, and even then, they hadn't spoken much. "We still have some things to tell each other," she said softly.

Tom's simple nod and smile, that precious understanding of her and her needs, created a catch in her throat. His confident love for her was one of his most precious characteristics. It made her want to be good for him, to not take his simple love for her for granted. If Rachel Berry had learned anything about love, it was about wanting to be better for the other person. She wanted to get on her knees in gratitude for having found him, because she had thought Finn was the only person in the world capable of making her feel that way.

Tom had ended her despair, ended the lingering hopelessness that Finn's absence had left in Rachel's heart. Somehow he had managed, in his gentle way, to reach out and tip her face upwards, back into the light and out of the shadow of her once vast, desolate sorrow. She pulled close to him, there in the warm bed.

"Marry me," she said.

**XXXxxx**

Hiram and Leroy Berry were gracious hosts. They had offered a room for Bob's parents, whom they had gotten to know over the past two years when in New York for showcases and NYADA's graduation ceremony. Amélie and Bob gratefully accepted, actually flying in in two days early to enjoy some time with their future in-laws.

"Who knows what the four of them have been up to," Rachel joked.

"I'm just relieved that they get along so well," Tom remarked. Joanna's in-laws had proven to be cold and not receptive to the Foley clan's charms.

Her dads also knew how to throw a party. The hors d'oeuvres were varied and delicious. Tom couldn't seem to get enough of the stuffed mushrooms. The Veuve Clicquot champagne was so sumptuous even Rachel had to pace herself drinking it.

"Amélie and I agreed on this." Hiram winked. "After a long sampling session."

"_Oui._ Your father has an excellent palate," Amélie said, tiny and elegant in a black Chanel dress and pearls. Rachel complimented her. She laughed gaily, as only Parisians can, and noted that Rachel had been taking some of her fashion tips as well, which stressed elegant understatement. She fingered Rachel's Dharma Wheel, which set off her own blue dress (Tom's favorite) perfectly.

"He has exquisite taste," she said, "in jewelry, and in women." Rachel blushed, but Amélie wagged her index finger. "Don't be so modest." Then she hugged Rachel tightly, murmuring, "I've never seen him so happy. Or you, for that matter, _non_? "

"I'm so happy," Rachel whispered, and Amélie let go, kissing her cheek, as Bob came up, kissing her cheek as well.

"Your parents and friends are delightful, Rachel," he said.

She introduced Amélie and Bob to the Schuesters, getting hugs from Will and Emma and promising to swing back, because Santana, Kurt and Sam were in a corner with Tom, beckoning her over. Santana put an arm around each of them, and Rachel and Tom faux cringed, bracing themselves for some Aunty Snix-patented snark, especially when Kurt pointed silently to a champagne bottle. Snark, however, was the least on their friend's mind.

"Warren," she said, "You've had a nasty habit of getting on my good side since we first met."

"Working on it," Tom quipped.

"Yeah, well…" Santana even chortled a little. "But seriously, you've been so good for our friend Berry over the last two years, that it's been tough to complain." Pause. "So here goes." Everyone burst out laughing, and Rachel looked across Santana to Tom sympathetically, mouthing "Incoming!"

"What the hell took you so long to ask Berry to marry you? This party should have been happening a year ago! At least then you'd have moved to your own place," she switched and began a spot-on impression of Principal Figgins, "and spared Kurt and me some of your loud monkeyshines!" Kurt nearly choked on his champagne from laughing, Rachel rolled her eyes, Sam clapped, while Tom pretended to look shamefaced.

"Sorry, ma'am," he mumbled, and Santana just pulled him closer.

"Nah, I'm just glad you two are getting hitched, it couldn't be happening to a nicer couple!" She reached for her glass. "To Berry and Warren!"

"Going to toast without me?" A familiar voice.

"Noah?!" Rachel turned quickly, joyfully, to see Noah Puckerman, in the flesh.

"Hi Berry," he said. He was thinner, extremely fit, dressed in a black jacket, t-shirt and jeans, with closely-cropped hair, and an older, wiser smile. They hugged, warmly, and Rachel beckoned to Tom.

"Noah, this is Tom Foley, my fiancé. Tom, this is Noah Puckerman, a dear friend, and Finn's best friend."

The two men shook hands. "I've been looking forward to meeting you," Tom said, "We're glad you made it back home safe."

"Thanks, man," Puck said, "I've been told you're good for my girl Berry here. That makes you good in my book." Then: "I also hear you're the owner of that choice TR250 outside. We gotta talk later."

"Sure!" Tom said.

Rachel went to Tom's side. "I'm going to take Noah outside to talk. Be back in a few."

Tom nodded. "I'll come get you when Burt and Carole arrive, okay?" She kissed him, then grabbed Puck's arm. "C'mon, Puckerman," she ordered, "we need to talk."

Puck laughed. "Yes ma'am." They grabbed champagnes and went out on the deck. It was lovely and mild outside. Puck looked over the backyard.

"It's good to see everyone again."

"It's good to see _you_ again, Noah." She sat down and gestured for him to do the same, next to her on the bench.

"You look happy, Rachel."

"I am happy. I'm happy you're back. And safe. I prayed for your safety the whole time you were gone."

"That's a lot of praying," Puck said. "I'm not sure I deserved it." He seemed pensive and sad.

"You were his best friend, Noah, and my friend, too. I prayed for you and him. I did it for years. It was all I had left to do. I don't know what I would have done if you had been hurt or killed, too." She rested her hand on his arm. "I missed you. There were times when I needed to talk about him and you were the only one who would have understood."

He nodded. "I missed you for the same reason. But I needed to do what I did. I'm a better person now."

She smiled through tears. "You are?"

"Yeah. I kinda did it for him, you know?" He looked out over the yard again. "I was trained as a firefighter. I worked on the emergency crews at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan before the pullout, then at a transit center in Kyrgyzstan run by the Air Force."

"You're a firefighter? That's wonderful!" She clapped her hands. "Would you consider coming to New York to work?"

He laughed. "Eventually, yeah. How could I stay away? In the meantime, though, I'm headed to Montana for smokejumper training, for the Forest Service."

"You're going to be jumping out of perfectly good airplanes? _Oy vey!_ "

"You're starting to sound like Mom," he laughed.

They sat for a few moments in silence, just glad to see each other again.

"You prayed for Finn too?" Puck eventually asked.

"Yes. I was afraid he didn't find peace, so I had Rabbi Abravanel give me a Hebrew prayer."

"He's such a good guy. I should go see him while I'm here." Then: "Finn found peace."

"How do you know?"

Puck settled on the bench. "I had been in Afghanistan about a year, and just before the pullout, we had finished a training drill for a plane crash landing. I was in my flame suit, holding the helmet under my arm, walking back to the barracks, when a Taliban asshole managed to drop a mortar round right on top of a fuel truck nearby."

"Oh my God!" Rachel covered her mouth.

"The blast knocked me down next to an empty metal tank, and I must have been in shock because I tried getting up right before the flames arrived. Next thing I know, a hand is pushing me down, and when my eyes started to focus, I could see Finn holding me down."

"Finn was holding you down?"

"Yeah, and the flames hit the tank I was lying next to, instead of roasting me." A look of wonder came over his face. "It was the damnedest thing: he was smiling. You remember that smile he would get after he played some prank, or when he sent you a boob text?"

"You saw him sending boob texts to me?" She chuckled at Puck's exasperated expression. He smiled, too. "He let go and disappeared when it was safe. So I knew he was fine, and still had my back."

"That's beautiful." She couldn't help feeling a twinge of envy, that Finn had actually appeared to him.

"Have you had anything similar happen? Maybe I imagined it, but I felt so much better afterwards, you know?"

"Something stranger and just as wonderful happened" she said, and excitedly told him the story of meeting Kelea. However, she watched his face slide into skepticism.

"Rachel," he said, arching an eyebrow,"You're a Jew. We Jews don't believe in reincarnation, remember?"

"I know. But the coincidences are uncanny."

"This Tom guy hasn't got you brainwashed on some California hippie woo shit, has he?"

She laughed, shaking her head. It felt so good to talk with him again. "With Tom, I'm not sad anymore," she said. "I can still love Finn, too, without Tom feeling threatened." She lay her head on Puck's shoulder. "He's really, really good for me." Then she added, "And I'm so glad you're back."

Inside the house, Tom welcomed Carole and Burt, who congratulated him, and he excused himself to get Rachel. As he stepped outside, he could see them sitting on the bench, Rachel's head on Puck's shoulder. They were singing softly together:

**_Now the darkness only stays the night-time_**

**_In the morning it will fade away_**

**_Daylight is good at arriving at the right time_**

**_It's not always going to be this gray_**

**_All things must pass_**

**_All things must pass away_**

**_All things must pass  
__  
__All things must pass away_**

Tom smiled, and let them sit, undisturbed, for a moment. The George Harrison song was one of his favorites, with its soothing, gentle spirituality. Having Puck back in her life would be good for Rachel, he thought. His voice wasn't bad either. It seemed that original group that captured Nationals was a hotbed of talent. That thought stayed with him the rest of the night. He wrote a note to himself on the iPad before they went to bed.

"What are you doing?" Rachel asked , coming out of her bathroom.

"Oh, you know me," he said. "Always writing down ideas."

**A/N: Lyrics are from the following songs: "Reflektor," written by Tim Kingsbury, Win Butler, Jeremy Gara, Richard R. Parry, Regine Chassagne & William Butler "It's Never Over (Hey Orpheus!)," written by Tim Kingsbury, Win Butler, Jeremy Gara, Richard R. Parry, Regine Chassagne & William Butler "All Things Must Pass," written by George Harrison**


	7. Chapter 7

Professor Weisman's office in Aspinwall Hall at Bard College was tiny, elegantly paneled in dark wood, and lined with books. Unlike some professor's offices Tom and Rachel had seen, it was immaculate and orderly, somewhat like its occupant. She was tall and slender, dressed in a black pantsuit and electric blue blouse, her gray hair in a neat bob, with good-humored lines around brown eyes. Rachel just knew the mug on her desk contained tea, not coffee.

"I'm so pleased to meet you! I'm Ginny Weisman." She offered them tea, English Breakfast, which Rachel accepted gratefully. Tom politely declined.

"Thank you for letting my husband Morris take those pictures! It's been a privilege researching this ring's history!"

Rachel picked up on the lack of "ex" in front of "husband", and also didn't see a ring on the professor's hand. So she hadn't remarried, apparently. She also gathered from their conversation in Santa Fe that Morris hadn't either.

"We so enjoyed meeting him," she said. Tom nodded in agreement.

"He's a good guy," Ginny said, smiling, then opened a folder on her desk. "I have to say, it's very rare to see a ring this old outside of a museum or locked up in the vaults of a private collector."

Tom looked at Rachel, then asked, "Just how old is it? "

"Well, given how we probably know who made it, and who it might have been made for, I'd say almost 650 years old."

"You know all this?" Rachel gasped. Ginny nodded. Tom, however, was not convinced.

"My family tried having its history researched, and came up empty. You sound pretty confident."

Ginny smiled. "If the research was done more than twenty years ago, it's not surprising." She showed them some notes, with measurements. "Morris sent me these essential measurements along with the pictures, and I was able to enter these in some statistical software that was developed a few years ago. It matches the measurements against a database compiled in the last twenty years of known jewelry from different historical periods, mostly taken from museum pieces, and it comes up with probable matches from known craftsmen, because the specific sets of measurements we look at are like a craftsman's signature. I'll still need to look at the ring, if you don't mind. The pictures couldn't tell me everything. You don't need to take it off." She looked at Rachel sympathetically—her reluctance to take the ring off had been growing, much like it had with Finn's, and must have shown on her face. Blushing, she extended her hand.

"Yes, yes..." Ginny murmured, staring at the ring through her jeweler's glass. She looked up. "I don't think there's any doubt. The delicacy of the engraving clinches it. This ring was made by Ibn Hudhayl, one of the great Moorish goldsmiths, probably in the 1370's or 80's, in Granada."

Rachel looked at Tom in amazement. He was grinning.

"Wow," they said in unison, making Ginny chuckle.

"You said you may know who he made the ring for," Tom pressed.

"Yes. Nobody other than royalty could afford a ring like this at that time in Moorish Spain, with the possible exception of rich merchants. So it was most likely made for a member of the Emir of Granada's family. Based on the little story the merchant told your grandfather when he bought the ring, the likeliest candidate was Hamza Abencerrage, a prince around that time."

"What do you know about him to make you think that?" Tom asked eagerly.

Ginny smiled put some reading glasses on, and consulted her notes.

"Hamza married Jamila, his childhood sweetheart, in 1384. Court records say he resisted pressure from the Emir to take other wives, he loved Jamila that much. She was said to be exceedingly beautiful and wise, and actually was his military advisor. An expensive ring is listed as part of her _mahr_, or brideprice, the groom's version of a dowry-required under Muslim law- which was the wife's property. "

"Muslim women had property?" Rachel raised her eyebrows.

"Oh yes," Ginny replied, "A _mahr_ gave a Muslim woman independence and security, assurance that she and her children would be taken care of if the husband died. Essentially, it was life insurance on the groom. Some of it was deliverable at the time of the wedding—I'm assuming the ring was part of that, and part would become the widow's after the husband's death. He wasn't allowed to touch it."

"I had no idea," Rachel said.

"Neither did I until I researched it," Ginny said. She continued:

"Hamza had an enviable reputation for valor and mercy on the battlefield. Apparently he once wounded and captured a Spanish prince, but before holding him for ransom, let him parole himself to get married in Spain first. The prince honored his parole by returning with his wife-and the ransom- after the wedding."

It sounds like a fairytale, Rachel thought, entranced. She looked at Tom in wonder.

"Eventually, though, in the summer of 1386, he gave in to his father's pressure and married Aixa, the very young daughter of a nobleman in command of the garrison town of Iznájar, to ensure the nobleman's loyalty."

"Oh my God, how sad."

"That isn't the half of it," Ginny replied, and a tender look come over her. "He died in battle, two months after the wedding, defending Iznájar from the army of Prince Diego de Montoya of Castile, the very man to whom he had shown compassion and chivalry before. Even Montoya wrote an account about Hamza's death, confirming the Moorish one."

Ginny paused. Then: "Jamila died of grief a few weeks later."

Tom and Rachel's eagerness to know the story had dampened, somewhat. They just sat there for a moment. What they had built up in their minds as an epic romance now sounded more like a Shakespearian tragedy.

"And Aixa? What of her?"

"It gets a little better here," said Ginny, to everyone's relief. "Aixa was carrying Hamza's son, Mohammed, when he died. Mohammed grew up to become a fearsome and respected warrior, like his father. His mother fell in love with a merchant's son from Malaga, and remarried. But that is all we know. "

Ginny looked up. Rachel was just staring at the ring, while Tom was shaking his head.

"Do you think I should be wearing this?" Rachel asked Tom. "I mean, I adore it, but this is way beyond being an antique." Before he could answer she suddenly shook her head. "No. If this beautiful ring was good enough for your grandmother, then its certainly good enough for me, whatever its worth."

He just gave her this adoring look. "Mom and I talked about it when she gave it to me. She said, 'This ring witnessed my parents' wonderful life together, and who knows how many others. Your father and I want it to witness yours and Rachel's, too.'" He took her hand. "It belongs here, not in a museum."

They realized someone else was in the room. Ginny was simply sitting there, watching them.

"Do you think this should be in a museum?" Rachel asked.

"I believe in love more than museums."

**XXXxxxxx**

Ginny Weisman stood at her office window, watching Tom and Rachel walk, hand-in-hand, to the parking lot. She liked them and their affectionate easiness with each other. They reminded her of how she and Morris had been, back then.

She had surprised herself with the love and museums remark. Professionally, she would have lobbied to have such an exquisite piece preserved for all to see. But there was something about how right it looked on Rachel's finger, especially against her deep-tanned skin, that evoked an ancient love. The girl seemed older than she was; maybe it was her eyes, dark and full. And there was the adoring way he looked at her. Morris had looked at her that way, too, before she left him six years ago for what she had thought was intellectual fulfillment.

Here at Bard she had the tenured, prestigious academic position she thought she had wanted so badly. No more working in the shop and taking adjunct teaching gigs at St. John's College in Santa Fe. Here she could do real research, publish papers, and garner respect. You've paid your dues, one of her male colleagues assured her. But she knew he was also interested in her sexually, and douche enough to try and hide it. The problem was, Ginny hadn't left Morris because she didn't love him.

They had met as grad students at UCLA, working for their Ph.D': hers in Art History, his in Chemistry. Then he had inherited his father's jewelry shop in Santa Fe, and the romance of getting married, finishing their degrees and just moving to the then-hippie-paradise of New Mexico overcame them. She wore her hair in long, twin braids then, dressed in thin, cotton dresses and sandals, and they made just enough money to be happy.

She looked over at a picture on a bookshelf of her younger self, smiling in the sun, overalls covering her tanned, very pregnant body, arms crossed under her breasts, Morris, long haired with round spectacles, wrapping his arms around her belly from behind, the snow-capped mountains in the background. He looked a little like Tom, then, she realized.

Memories of little Zelda toddling around the shop as they worked. Coming home from teaching an evening class and finding both of them together asleep in the armchair, always a book lying open, unfinished. Crying at Zelda's college graduation, and the long, tequila-fueled night trying to explain to him why she felt she was dying and how taking the job at Bard would save her. Praying that her daughter would someday forgive her for leaving her father. And the guilt of knowing that he already had.

The heat was on, yet she felt cold, and wrapped her arms around herself. The pictures of the ring on her desk looked up, silently. Her own rings sat in their box on her dresser. He had wanted to get her a better set when they finally started making real money, but she would have none of it.

"You loved me when we had nothing," she had told him. Thinking about that now, she felt ashamed. She wished she were home so she could put them on again, to remember how they felt, how she had felt.

She wanted to justify what she had told Rachel and Tom.

He answered on the second ring. And no, he hadn't made plans yet for Thanksgiving, and yes, he still remembered how to make that stuffing that she loved.

**XXXxxx **

"I need to go shopping for the wedding dress," Rachel told him on the drive back to New York.

"Where did _that_ come from?" They had been talking about the history of the ring.

"Just my normal stream-of-consciousness," she laughed, enjoying the wind in her hair on this very mild, early-fall day. He nodded, as if what she had said made perfect sense.

She had been thinking about the ring, and its story, which led to her musing about Finn's ring. After the engagement party in Lima, she had finally gathered the courage to open the ring box and show it to Tom. They were sitting on her bed, side by side. He stared at it for a few moments, then asked,

"What would you like to do with it?" His face, totally open and sincere, told her he trusted her to make the right decision for all three of them. And she knew he would never tell her what to do.

Part of her wanted to wear it again, but on her right hand, like widows do. That thought didn't last, however. She had also thought about having the stones made into a necklace. The question, then, was when to wear it. At first she thought she would wear it when thinking of Finn, but realized that would be advertising what she was thinking to the world. She knew Tom would never object, but she didn't want to wave that in his face, either. So she had an idea.

"I'd like to have Morris take the stones and make it into a ring," she said, then smiled gently. "And I'm going to buy a special stone, your stone, to add to it. It will honor both of you, and I'll wear it on my right hand. It will represent the loves of my life."

"A bromance ring," Tom joked, nodding, and she kissed him, because she adored his self-confident love for her.

They sat for a few moments, and then Tom asked, "What about your dress? Have you decided to do anything with it?"

"Yes. I'm going to give it to my rabbi for the temple charity."

He nodded approvingly. She took his hand. She had started trembling.

"I—I have to retrieve something from the box first—a letter I wrote Finn the night before the first wedding. But I wanted to ask…" Her voice had dropped to a whisper. "Would you like to see the dress?"

To her infinite relief, Tom shook his head. "Let's keep that Finn's privilege," he said, and she had to rummage for his handkerchief.

"I'll be right back," she said, and walked into her closet. The white box sat on the shelf, as it had all those years. This time Rachel didn't hesitate to approach it, her knees strong, and her fingers raised the lid smoothly without trembling. The letter lay on top of the dress, in its white envelope, the word "Finn" written in her best cursive. As she removed the envelope, she couldn't resist smoothing the dress one last time. The memory of his face, the happiness seeing her in the dress, felt warm and comforting this time. She sealed it quickly and stepped back, taking a deep breath. It was done. She strode confidently out of the closet, towards her new life.

**A/N: Reviews are welcome!**


	8. Chapter 8

Rachel and Amélie sat in a Manhattan café, enjoying some coffee. The plan for buying a wedding dress had been fruitless so far; rehearsals and production plans just seemed to get in the way at every turn. A wedding date of June 3rd had been set. So there was some time—it only being October, but Rachel was leaving nothing to chance. One night she called Amélie, panicked about the dress, and the next thing she knew, her future mother-in-law took some vacation time and flew to New York to help.

"You said you loved Joanna's wedding dress, _non_? Well, I took her to New York to a designer friend of mine, from Paris, Yvette Lucane. She owns an exclusive little shop that I'd like you to visit. She might be able to help." They had an appointment at three.

"Do you have any general ideas about the dress?" Amélie asked.

Rachel nodded. "I asked Tom what kind of suit or tux he wanted to wear. He said he liked the traditional black tuxedo, but always had a fondness for the Edwardian style."

"Ah," Amélie cooed, "Edwardian, _très élégant_. "

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Originally, I wanted something like this." In her binder for the wedding plans, she pointed to a picture of Audrey Hepburn's iconic tea-length wedding dress, very similar to what she chose for her first wedding. That choice had been all her own, Finn really hadn't given her any input- she had just instinctively felt it was right. She smiled to herself, remembering that his look told her those instincts had been so right.

Amélie nodded, smiling. "_J'adore, _but there is no Edwardian feel to it, _n'est-ce pas?" _

"Exactly. I'd like to see what ideas your friend has along those lines."

"You do know he will love anything you choose, Rachel." Her eyes twinkled over her coffee cup as she took a sip.

"I know. But I want to honor him with the choice as well."

The talk drifted towards the wedding itself. Rachel and Tom had agreed to a Jewish ceremony. In fact, Tom had insisted.

"I'm only a do-it-yourself Buddhist", he told her. "Besides, marriage, from a strictly Buddhist point of view, is more a secular affair. The ceremonies and civil procedures themselves are usually dictated by the cultures and governments of the countries in which they occur." Then he kissed her. "So I'd be honored to marry you in a Jewish ceremony, as long as it recognizes that I am a gentile."

"Of course," Rachel had agreed. "I'd like to have our family rabbi, Rabbi Abravenel preside, and we went to several interfaith ceremonies of his. Do we also need a Buddhist monk?"

"No, that won't be necessary. Rabbi Abravanel will do just fine."

"We've had success with interfaith marriages," Amélie noted, "Although Ted and Frieda's marriage got off to a rocky start."

"But they're perfect together," Rachel protested.

"Oh _oui_, they are," Amélie agreed, "But Frieda and her family are Catholic, and her mother insisted on a nuptial mass. That caused problems, because a mass involves the taking of communion, which eliminated our family, and over half the guests."

Rachel shook her head. "Having a ceremony that excludes the groom doesn't sound very promising."

"_Oui, assurément. _Frieda was so upset. She loves her mother, but couldn't get her to change her mind."

"So what happened?"

Amélie grinned. "The priest who was going to officiate told Frieda's parents that, _entant que principe_—" she searched for the English equivalent, "–er, as a matter of principle, he did not perform nuptial masses for interfaith couples. Instead, he offered to celebrate a special mass for just her family before the wedding. It was _très important_, he said, for her family to receive the sacrament of communion on Frieda's wedding day, but it was _également important_ that the marriage ceremony itself be a joining of two people and families, _sans exclusion_."

"He sounds wise, like my rabbi." She was now used to Amélie's lapses into French. Tom said she was very careful with her English in professional situations, but with family and friends she often slipped, usually on very common expressions and greetings, or on some of the lesser-used English idioms. Rachel found her utterly charming.

They talked about raising children in the Jewish tradition. Rachel had been relieved at Tom's relaxed approach. His only condition was that his children also know his beliefs, which Rachel would have insisted on anyway. Amélie certainly had no problem with Jewish grandchildren, or "_les petits-enfants juifs_" as she adorably put it.

Amélie had been raised Catholic, but by the time she met Bob (a quasi-Buddhist), had become an agnostic. She loved some of the Christmas traditions she grew up with in France, however, and enthusiastically presided over them in her own family.

"We all grew up calling Santa Claus '_Père Noël'", _Tom told Rachel before that first Christmas together, "and we do make sure to have a real feast on Christmas Day, a goose sometimes, but usually my favorite, a turkey with oyster stuffing. And at least one insanely rich dessert." He was right about the stuffing—it was on Rachel's "guilty pleasure" list, right up there with Carole's fried chicken.

Before Finn, Rachel had never celebrated Christmas, her Jewishness in a small Midwestern city yet another contributing factor to her isolation as a child. Of course, she didn't see it that way. By the time she was in high school, Rachel considered her solitude more like a vaccine against the dreary, provincial awfulness of Lima.

Meeting Finn changed _everything_. He had swept into her life like a tsunami, overwhelming almost everything she knew about herself, wiping away the rationalizations she had constructed to justify her loneliness and isolation, like so much flotsam and jetsam, leaving her exposed and open for the first time. She came to love Christmas because she loved him, and his death didn't change that. Nor did finding Tom, and being welcomed into his warm family, and their traditions.

Now that they were working on Broadway, however, handling the holidays as a couple would be a logistical nightmare. The holiday season on Broadway usually meant extra matinees and even performances on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

"Don't worry about that," Amélie told her in the cafe. "Bob and I have been talking with your fathers." She had a triumphant look on her face. "We will come up with new traditions for the holidays!"

Relieved, Rachel joked, "Will they include your oyster stuffing?"

Chuckling, Amélie hugged Rachel warmly. "Oh, _bien sûr_!"

"RACHEL!" A child's voice, from behind her.

"Look mommy, it's Rachel!" Kelea was standing a few feet away, pointing. Her mother held her other hand. Rachel gave them a delighted smile.

"Kelea! Julie! What a wonderful surprise!" It was wonderful in more ways than one. Ever since Santa Fe Rachel had been debating how to initiate contract with Kelea and her family. And here they were. She beckoned. "Do you have time to join us?"

Julie nodded as Kelea broke the handhold and ran to the table, followed by her mother, shaking her head.

"We're out shopping for school stuff!" Kelea said, and Julie looked apologetic.

"Hi, she said to Amélie. "This is my daughter Kelea, and I'm Julie Coldstream."

"Kelea, Julie, this is Tom's mother, Dr. Amélie Foley."

"Just Amélie, please," she said, then to Kelea, "You are in school? How exciting!"

"I'm in kindergarten," Kelea said. "Rachel likes my Daddy's paintings."

"Kelea's father is an artist whose work we saw in Santa Fe," Rachel explained, "but she and her family live in New York. Her parents teach art at Pratt."

"Dan was so pleased you bought his painting," Julie said. "One customer overheard you expressing interest, and that seemed to trigger a lot more attention. He sold all at the exhibit!"

"Ah," Amélie said to Rachel, nodding, "the wedding gift you told me about."

"There's going to be a wedding?" Kelea piped up.

"Rachel and Tom are getting married," Julie explained.

"In fact," Rachel added, "We're going to shop for a wedding dress in a few minutes."

The little girl's eyes grew wide.

"You are? Can I come?"

"Kelea." Her mother's warning voice, "They are going to be very busy—"

"Of course she can come with us," Rachel said suddenly, not sure how that came out, bringing a twinkle to Amélie's eyes. "If you are okay with it, that is. We'd be glad to bring her home."

Julie didn't look convinced, but Amélie stepped in.

"Julie, we would be honored with Kelea's company and her considered opinion." Her delightful French accent worked its charms, and Julie relaxed.

"I could use a couple of hours to run some errands on my own," she said. "Dan is home in his studio. I'll call him and tell him what's going on, in case you drop her off before I get back." She pulled out her phone and spoke for a few seconds, and smiled. "Dan says hi, and thanks you for inviting Kelea on such a special trip."

"Yay!" said Kelea.

In the cab, the two women listened to Kelea's account of kindergarten life. Art, apparently, was not her favorite subject.

"My teacher didn't like my pumpkin drawing," she said, in anger more than sadness. "She wouldn't let it go up on the wall with the other pumpkins."

"Why not, _ma cherie_?" Amélie asked, mystified at the teacher's behavior.

"She said it couldn't go up on the wall because I made it a _boy_ pumpkin."

Rachel and Amélie stared at each other, puzzled. Then Amélie, who had far more experience with kindergartener's art, looked like she was trying to suppress a laugh.

"Boys don't look like girls," she said. Kelea nodded, sagely.

"I just made him look like my baby cousin Petey when Auntie Jeanne changes his diapers."

Tom's mother threw Rachel a quick glance, and it was suddenly clear why Kelea's pumpkin didn't make it to the wall. The two of them wanted to die laughing, but had to keep up a serious front.

"Maybe there's a rule against boy pumpkins in school," Rachel offered up. The little girl just shrugged; her world was full of rules that made no sense.

"I like singing better, anyways."

**XXXxxxx**

They had spent a wonderful couple of hours. Rachel and Amélie could not believe how patient and excited Kelea had been. Yvette Lucane looked like a slim, intense, Catherine Deneuve. She and Amélie had gone to college together at the University of Paris and during breaks couldn't resist conversing happily in French. Rachel took that time to explain to Kelea why she couldn't understand what they were saying.

"I like French", the little girl said. "It sounds pretty."

Kelea had enjoyed the dresses Rachel tried on. At first it felt strange, especially since Rachel wanted to try another tea-length dress like her original, and Kelea clapped her hands in delight.

"Oh Rachel, it's so pretty!' she said. In the back of her mind, Rachel wondered if Finn was really there, and would he like that first one more than the others? Fortunately, her heart told her to try on other dresses, because, had anyone asked, it was Tom she was thinking of now. And, as it turned out, Kelea liked _every _dress. Amélie, on the other hand, took careful notes, and offered wonderful feedback. Rachel and Amélie were still in agreement on the tea-length dress, even though Rachel loved how she looked in it. The other dresses were nice too, but just not right in her heart.

And then she found it. The top was white, covered in a white lace, with a modest, heart-shaped "decolette" as Yvette refereed to it, its edges lined in hand-sewn pearls. The narrow straps were covered in delicate lace and pearls as well, and the simple chiffon skirt hung long and narrow, evoking the simple gowns of Ancient Greece. Topping it off was a white lace shawl. Its slim profile even made her look taller, not that he cared.

"Oh Rachel," Amélie breathed, "_tu es si belle." _Kelea tugged her sleeve.

"What does that mean, Amélie?"

Amélie gave her a hug. "I told Rachel that she looked so beautiful. Don't you think so?"

"Oh yes. She's very pretty!"

Yvette and Amélie told Rachel it would compliment an Edwardian tux perfectly. Kelea liked all of them the same.

"Cant you get married in each of them?" she wanted to know.

Somehow she made perfect sense, in an untraditional way.

**A/N: Reviews welcome!**


	9. Chapter 9

The night before her wedding, Rachel Berry wrote two letters, alone, in the loft. Tom was at their new Manhattan apartment, honoring the Jewish tradition of the groom not seeing the bride for three days, Santana was at her girlfriend's place, and Kurt and Blaine, finally married two years ago, said they'd be back later to cuddle with her on her last night there.

She sat at the kitchen table, staring at the envelope with the letter she wrote Finn before their wedding. It was still unopened. And it would remain that way, she decided. Those had been the thoughts of a seventeen-year-old girl, innocent in so many ways, and while her feelings hadn't changed, the circumstances had, so much so that the context framing the letter would have been inconceivable then. So, after pondering a few moments, she took up her pen.

_**My Dearest Finn, **_

_**I'm sitting here, on the eve of my wedding to Tom, looking at a letter I wrote you the night before we were to be married. Back then, I wanted you to know exactly how much being your wife meant to me. I wanted you to know how sure I was, how optimistic, and determined to make you happy. I needed you to know the joy that filled my heart. **_

_**One of my fondest wishes was to have given it to you when we finally did get married (we were endgame, remember?). It was important to me that you knew that all of the heartache we went through in between never changed my love for you one bit. **_

_**This letter is me telling you that, even now, nothing has changed between us, as far as our love is concerned. It's as fresh today as it was then. And it will stay that way to the end. I know we broke promises to each other before, but I swear on my soul I will love you always. **_

_**And I need you to know that I'm happy. When I lost you I thought I could never be happy again, that I could never love anyone as I loved you. But Finn, by some miracle, I did. I thought all the love I was capable of feeling was lost when you were taken from me. But I was wrong. Tom's love for me is pure and true, just like yours, and I love him as much as I love you, because my love isn't like money, or atoms, or the grains of sand on a beach, finite and limited. My love is huge, bigger than the Universe, without end. It took losing you and finding Tom for me to realize it. It took moments of almost complete despair and peaks of dazzling hope to get where I am now. I'm pretty sure it's where you would want me to be. **_

_**I used to worry about forgetting anything about us. Somehow, even forgetting the exact wording of a conversation, no matter how trivial, felt like a betrayal. I couldn't go on like that, Finn. It was too hard. Tom once told me that forgetting the minute things was a natural part of the grieving process. What mattered, he said, more than anything else, was to keep my love for you intact, because it was what made me who I am, the woman he fell in love with. So, while I may not remember exactly what we said on a particular day, or how you looked in every detail anymore, I choose to keep sacred in my memory the joy I felt that night before our wedding, as well as the desolation when I realized you were truly gone. Those two extremes, more than anything, encapsulate what you mean to me. Tending these parts of the garden keeps our love alive, yet grants me the time and energy to live my life, because I was left behind, and living my life as well as I can is all I can do. **_

_**I hope I have made you proud with my work. I often feel your presence with me on stage, because you know our deepest connection was always the music. I have a very similar connection with Tom—we are definitely each other's muse. And yes, Finn, you are my muse as well. You made me a better human, and I depended on you for that wonderful balance you always seemed to project. It gave my voice warmth as well as power. It still does. **_

_**You know, even if I didn't show it at the time, one of the proudest moments of my life was when you said I was your moose. I often think back to that moment, and wonder what would have happened if I had run to your arms and told you why I had been crying and that I loved you and that we needed to stay together, no matter what. How much heartbreak we could have spared ourselves. But I didn't. And I'm sorry. **_

_**I hope your soul is at peace, Finn. I know you used to wonder about karma, and reincarnation, and whether or not you were a good person. I think I can weigh in on that, and say, without any reservation, that you were a good man. I've met Kelea, and if what I think is true about her, then you generated positive karma. No dung beetle for you, Hudson. I will watch over her. You wondered once, how you would be remembered. Well, we Jews believe that people live on in the memories of their loved ones. I will always remember you as that sweet, humble, beautiful man that showed me how to love, and brought the music into my life. **_

_**So don't worry about me, okay? I'm at peace too, and ready to start my life with another truly good man. But I would never have found this peace had I not met and loved you first. You were my first, and for that I will be forever grateful. Rest assured the love I've found with Tom is worthy of you; I made sure he meets the very high bar you set for me. **_

_**I will love you forever. **_

_**Rachel**_

She pushed her chair back and made use of one of Tom's handkerchiefs that she had liberated from his drawer to prevent tears from falling on the paper as she folded it. Then she got up and poured herself a glass of red wine.

It had been easier than she thought, despite some tears, and now that it was done, her excitement grew. The ring seemed to draw her gaze to it. Maybe it was her imagination, but it felt heavier, more solid, as the stone glittered in the light. She felt a stirring within her, as if she had tapped into a current of…something, she wasn't sure. A warmth. A positive energy. The wine suddenly tasting better, the light in the room, glowing ever so softly. Certainty and desire.

Her pen began flowing over the stationary in strong, confident strokes.

_**My Darling Tom,**_

_**It's the eve of our wedding. I'm sitting here, having a glass of wine, and missing you. I know it's only been three days, but separation from you does not sit well with me. I've gotten far too used to your qualities to be comfortable apart. I miss your warmth in our bed in the morning, as well as excellent coffee; those amazingly blue eyes with that look of love in them which you reserve only for me; the seemingly endless well of original music for me to sing; your touch; the slow deliberateness of your kisses; that clean scent; your uncanny empathy and compassion…I could go on. **_

_**Tomorrow we are going to pledge our lives to each other, and just the thought of that leaves me flushed with excitement. I know Santana likes to joke about the fact I have been in this situation twice before, and that it should be old hat to me now, but believe me, baby, I'm trembling, not from anxiety, but from wanting to be your wife so badly it almost hurts. Before we met I thought I would never feel this way again, and now, every day, I want to get down on my knees and thank God you ran over your allotted time for that rehearsal room. I had lost any hope of finding someone who could tap my love for creating art the way you do. Losing Finn took many things away from me that I thought I'd never get back. You will never know how much joy I have felt over the fact you brought those things back to me. And I will forever be grateful for your helping me to see just how much love I was capable of feeling.**_

_**But it's not all about what you've given to me. I want to honor your music, to give it a voice so the world can hear it properly. I want to pleasure you till you forget your name. I want to keep you company when you feel lonely, and hand you red licorice on road trips. I want to cook you fried chicken and learn how to make oyster stuffing. I want to listen to you tell me your deepest fears and your fondest dreams, and I want to help make those dreams come true. I want to make you happy. **_

_**And here's what our union will give to both of us: a passionate musical partnership, and a family. We are going to transform Broadway, Tom. And our children will be incarnations of our love, and draw strength and character from the way you and I love and respect each other. **_

_**You know, I was just thinking of that time at NYADA in the rehearsal room, when you played and sang this Beatles song:**_

_**Limitless undying love**_

_**Which shines around me like a million suns**_

_**It calls me on and on across the universe**_

_**So, let me just end this by saying that is me, Tom, calling to you. Forever.**_

_**I adore and miss you, and can't wait to join you under the chuppa. **_

_**Your Rachel**_

She kissed the paper, leaving a faint imprint from her lip gloss over her name, and sighed. There was no way she was getting much sleep, so she went over to the couch with her wine and pulled out her phone.

"Hey," she said softly, when he answered.

"Hey." Then a pause. "Are cell phones kosher before the wedding?"

"I don't care," Rachel said, chuckling. "I just had to hear your voice."

"I've missed you," he said.

"Who knew three days could be so long? Do you realize we haven't been apart for more than a day or two since we met?"

She heard him laugh. "And we aren't tired of each other. I think that's a very good sign."

"Tom?"

"Yes?"

"I'm not scared."

"Me neither."

**XXXxxxx**

They waved to their parents, who left the _yichud _room, after escorting them there from the ceremony. The sound of the door being locked from the outside made them laugh. They had twenty minutes to just take a breath, and be alone with each other .

"Do they think you're going to run away from me?" Tom joked, standing with Rachel by the small couch, gazing at her. It was their first moment alone as man and wife.

"If they do, then they don't know you or me at all," Rachel said, placing the bouquet on a chair. She rushed to him. This kiss was far more passionate than the one they had just shared, before the congregation.

"My heart almost stopped when I saw you," Tom murmured, caressing the rich fabric of her dress. "You were so beautiful."

She could feel his adoration. Her own heart was still racing from saying her vows, from that feeling of splendorous freedom and joy a young bird must feel when its wings bite into the air for the first time.

She took his hand and led him to the couch. His look of delight was wonderful when she pulled the linen off a tray on a table, revealing two large yellow cookies, and a small pot of fresh coffee. Per tradition, Tom and Rachel had fasted since midnight, and one of the purposes of the _yichud_ room was to give the couple a chance to break that fast. Tom peered at the cookies more closely, and looked up, grinning. One had "Tom" written on it; the other "Rachel".

"I baked them myself, this morning," Rachel said, pouring the coffee. "Take your cookie."

"Is it true that the _yichud_ room was also where marriages were consummated?" Tom asked, between bites.

"I think so, at least a long time ago." A saucy grin. "Ours ain't getting consummated here, I can assure you." He roared with laughter, as she slid sultrily towards him, and kissed him even more deeply than before. "It doesn't mean I can't make out with my new husband, however."

He eventually pulled away, and reached into his coat, producing a small jewelry box. They had worn no jewelry during the ceremony other than the simple golden wedding bands each gave the other. The box contained the engagement ring, the ring with Finn's and his stones, and the Dharma Wheel necklace. When she had her rings and necklace on, Rachel turned to Tom and held both his hands.

"I'm going to give you the traditional blessing a bride gives her husband now," she said.

He could tell from her eyes that this had immense personal significance to her, summoning all her strength. She sat before him, confident and unafraid, eyes shining, voice strong and unwavering:

"May you merit to have a long life, and may you unite with me in love from now until eternity. May I merit to dwell with you forever."

Tom knew what it took for her to be able to say something like that. It meant she truly loved him completely and unreservedly. He thought back to the Buddhist blessing Rabbi Abravanel gave at the ceremony, from the Buddha's sermon at Rajagaha:

_**Do not deceive; do not despise each other anywhere. Do not be angry nor bear secret resentments; for as a mother will risk her life and watches over her child, so boundless be your love to all, so tender, kind and mild. Cherish good will right and left, early and late, and without hindrance, without stint, be free of hate and envy, while standing and walking and sitting down, what ever you have in mind, the rule of life that is always best is to be loving-kind.**_

"You merit everything," he said, "You are loving-kind." And his wife smiled at him, so pretty, so perfect in his eyes.

**XXXXxxxxx**

She had danced with Tom, her fathers, and her new father-in-law. Rachel was about to sit for a minute when she felt a tug on her dress.

"You look pretty," Kelea said. Rachel squatted to give the little girl a hug.

"Thank you. And you, young lady, look beautiful." She did, in a pretty blue dress, her dark hair straight and shiny.

"Mommy says you and Tom are going to Paris tomorrow."

"That's right. It's our honeymoon, a trip married people take after the wedding, sort of like a vacation. Some of Tom's aunts and uncles live there, too, and we want to see them."

"Can I come, too?" It seemed like an innocent child's question, but Kelea's hand reached out and touched her wedding rings, and, at that moment, their eyes met. The little girl's dark eyes were almost black, and deep within them Rachel almost saw a much older concern, a wanting to watch over her, somehow. It was fleeting, however, and Rachel just hugged Kelea again tightly.

"Oh honey, I wish you could," she said honestly, "But you have your life here, with your Mommy and Daddy, who I'm sure would miss you terribly."

Kelea nodded, then looked over and waved at her parents, who watched them with amusement. She turned and kissed Rachel's cheek.

"'Bye, Rachel!" She started towards her parents, but turned suddenly, with an older, solemnly reassuring look.

"I love you."

Then she was gone, hair flying, straight into her Daddy's adoring arms.

Rachel stood up and watched her go. From where she was standing, she could see her guests, friends and family alike, mingling, eating, talking, laughing, dancing, all brought together by one decision, hers and Tom's decision to spend the rest of their lives together, like different tributaries compelled to merge with a river. And that decision owed everything to her and Tom being brought together, another stream fed by other tributaries of chance and circumstance, tragedy and triumph, and the power of love. She rubbed her engagement ring absently, caught up in a distinct feeling of _connectedness_, a web of lives, and the ripples of time and love, and there was her new husband bringing her champagne without being told that's just what she wanted, and a little girl with an old soul keeping watch over her while giggling as she danced with her father by standing on his feet. She felt scars fading away, and then Kelea tossed back her head in joy, and Rachel caught a glimpse of that beloved half-smile.

"I love you, too," she whispered.

**A/N: Lyrics are from "Across the Universe", by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Reviews are always welcome. **


	10. Chapter 10

They were late getting back on a Friday night from Kurt's new show. Rachel and Tom hadn't planned on spending so much time at the after party, but they just couldn't resist dancing together and enjoying the good food and company.

"Do you have enough cash? " she asked him in the cab on the way home. Kelea had turned thirteen and that night was her very first babysitting job. Julie Coldstream had asked if she could take care of their five-year-old daughter, Amélie. "She's so sweet and easy to take care of, and they know each other," Julie said.

It made perfect sense, though both of them knew Amélie wasn't _that _sweet all of the time. "Headstrong," was how an early babysitter once described her.

"Do you think we'll owe Kelea combat pay?" Tom joked.

"Of course not," Rachel replied. "I gave Amélie the usual talk." That talk had become a family tradition. "Remember who you are," Rachel and Tom would tell her. "Remember who you represent." It proved surprisingly effective. Her pre-school and kindergarten teachers, while confirming Amélie's headstrong tendencies, also consistently remarked on how well-behaved she was in general, and how well she got along with the other children. Rachel didn't want her daughter to experience the isolation she had endured as a child, and, it turned out, that fear was unfounded. She was often invited to sleepovers and play dates with friends, much to Rachel's relief. Part of Rachel's anxiety lay in the fact that Amélie was practically a carbon copy of her, though she did need glasses around age four. "Maybe she is mine, after all," Tom quipped. She was petite, even for a five-year-old, with her mother's dark hair, eyes, and strong Semitic nose. Headstrong tendencies aside, Amélie was like both her parents in being kind and warm-hearted. She liked gloating over the fact that their cat, Caruso, preferred snuggling with _her_. "That's 'cause I give him the best rubs," she declared.

"I've got enough cash," Tom said, and Rachel smiled, settling back in the seat. The thought of Kelea taking care of her daughter was comforting to both her and her husband. The girl had become attached to them, and Daniel and Julie were among some of their closest friends. She had grown into a tall, beautiful young woman. There was still a little gangliness, but she otherwise carried herself well. Her parents joked about the fact that she seemed to show little talent for painting or drawing, but her academic interests soon became very clear. Kelea was a voracious reader. Rachel had agreed to watch her for Daniel and Julie one Saturday morning soon after the wedding, and found she could read at a surprisingly advanced level. In her little backpack was a copy of _The Wind in the Willows_, and she asked Rachel to sit and read with her. She had mastered the basics and was able to read much of it out loud without any trouble. Of course, her vocabulary was limited, and Rachel soon realized Kelea needed her more to supply definitions and/or pronunciations of unfamiliar words and to explain some concepts, than to actually read to her. She was flooded with familiar warmth, and gazed fondly at the girl, silently thanking him.

It soon became clear Kelea had a gift for writing. She was eight when Amélie was born, and on her first visit after they brought the baby home, presented Rachel and Tom with a poem she had written for the occasion. They had it framed and placed on a wall in the nursery. The two children developed a bond from the very beginning. Kelea always volunteered to help change the baby's diapers when she was over, and seemed to be the best at getting her to stop crying. When Amélie was three, during a dinner party at their apartment, Rachel went looking for the two of them and found the girls sitting quietly on Amélie's bed, Kelea reading Dr Seuss out loud. They were giggling. At first glance, they could have passed for sisters.

"Tom?" Rachel asked, snuggling next to him in the cab.

"Yes?" His fingers intertwined with hers.

"I don't think I've ever felt this content in my life."

It was true. Professionally, Rachel was on a roll, coming off winning the Tony for Lead Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Sally Jones in Tom's musical _Mount Olympus Blues,_ which they had gotten produced after the acclaimed _Don't Look Back_. At the end of the run, she and Tom decided it was time, and Amélie was born. She was almost immediately offered a role in a new play by an earlier NYADA graduate of the composer program, Ivan Powell. At first Rachel balked over concerns about Amélie's care, but Tom, who was getting hefty residuals over London productions of _Don't Look Back_ and _Mount Olympus Blues_, asked if she'd mind if he took a break at home with their daughter and recharged his batteries. "Besides," he told her, "I can't have my wife turn down the opportunity to work with Ivan Powell." She garnered a Tony nomination for Powell's play _The Poisoned Tree_, and was the female lead for its three year run. By that time she was ready for a break, and Tom began seriously working on a new project (at home) for her, and a new genre for him—opera. So, she and her husband were able to spend the last two years at home with their daughter. During the last year, Rachel did spend a few weeks in LA singing on Mercedes's new album, _No Back Row Belter_. She took Amélie with her so the grandparents could get to see their granddaughter, and the album photographer caught a beautiful moment in the control booth, with Amélie's grandmother holding her up so she could see her mother and Mercedes singing together in the other room. The photograph appeared in the CD booklet, and _Rolling Stone_ published it in an article on the album. They had it framed and hung it in the living room.

She was content in her marriage. The first three years had been a whirlwind of creative activity with Tom, late nights rehearsing and preparing the musicals, celebrating the completion of a song with a bottle of good scotch, cooking meals for each other, going to the theater. She taught him how to handle the paparazzi, and marveled at his calm demeanor when asked stupid questions, such as, how did he feel about Rachel keeping her last name? "Rachel Berry is the name of the woman I fell in love with," he had replied without hesitation the first time, "Why would I want her to change it?" After eight years, any romantic misconceptions about marriage had been pretty much erased. Fortunately, the reality was just fine with her. She honestly could not remember a serious fight, nor did they ever go to bed angry. Of course, the fact both were neat freaks led to some early disagreements over how each's neatness could be expressed. For example, Tom simply couldn't function if the record collection wasn't organized a particular way, and Rachel, whose mind screamed at the thought of filing Jethro Tull albums under "J", but Joni Mitchell albums under "M", gave in to his wishes, since he put up with her need to organize socks in drawers by color. From these kinds of small compromises grew a lasting respect and even affection for each other's quirks. They refused to let anything fester. In fact, their personal relationship mirrored their solid professional partnership. The entertainment press called them "Foberry", but found them boring, for the most part. Which was fine with Tom and Rachel, who took advantage of that and enjoyed their love affair under the radar and the scandal sheets.

And then there was their daughter. When they decided to get pregnant, Rachel went through a period of manic anxiety. Tom once joked that the owners of the small local bookstore they frequented were able to finance their son's college education on the baby books she purchased. Of course, what she discovered was, these books were often filled with contradictory advice, which made her new mother anxiety even worse. At the end of three months, Tom snapped. Rachel came home from an errand to find all of the books gone, the shelf space now taken up by a series of antique teddy bears.

"We are going to follow your instincts from now on," he declared, steadfast in the face of her epic freak out.

"My instincts?" she asked, after taking a breath and sitting on the couch. Despite her anxiety, her first instinct was to trust him.

"Yes, your instincts. First things first: you don't need those ten books about recommended diets for pregnant women."

"I don't?" To be honest, none of them seemed to work. Her obstetrician had started complaining about her lack of weight gain. When Rachel indignantly showed her the list of resources she had compiled, she just smiled, and insisted she eat better. "Maybe I need a better-informed obstetrician" she had huffed to Tom, who wisely said nothing at the time.

"No, you don't. Listen." He went into the kitchen and poured her a glass of milk. "Looks good, doesn't it?"

"Yes, but—"

"No buts. It looks good to you because your body and our baby need it." He handed it to her and she sipped eagerly.

"But I also need all the cream puffs at Merton's bakery," she wailed.

"That's not your instincts talking," he said, kissing her cheek. "That's your sweet tooth." She had to laugh because it was true.

"Baby, your instincts are telling you to gain weight, so give in, but let your head rule over the sweet tooth. I'm almost done making lunch. Tell me what you think. We're having lean roast beef and swiss sandwiches on whole grain bread, with spinach instead of lettuce, tomatoes, kosher pickles and leftover pasta salad. He paused, because he could tell her mouth was watering. "You see baby, those are your instincts at work." He didn't mention that he had actually bought her a cream puff while she was gone, for dessert.

"What else are my instincts telling me?" she asked, smiling now that her anxiety was easing, loving how her husband was engaged like this.

"They aren't saying anything else now, other than to get you fed," he said, "But afterwards you are going to want to take a nice walk with me."

"Before my nap?" Taking naps while pregnant was the _best_.

"Rachel, you told me how much better you felt after your nap if you walked first. Remember?" Good God, he was adorable.

He worshiped the changes in her body, and she never felt self conscious about them at all. She always looked forward to him massaging her belly at night with cream to prevent stretch marks, which he murmured probably wasn't necessary because her instincts told her to eat the right things to keep her skin elastic, but he loved caressing her, and it felt so comforting and sensual, and their baby always responded with gentle hello kicks for him. She even loved when the baby slept, it made her feel powerful and protective, and capable. And her own dreams of floating in a warm ocean eased the anxiety, making her pregnancy, even with its secondary discomforts, some of the happiest months of her life.

Amélie was born at 1 PM on a Tuesday, and Tom was with her. She didn't need an epidural because she had gained enough weight and kept fit and rested, and at one point it hurt such that she wondered how any human mother had ever survived giving birth, but with absolute concentration on the task at hand, and with Tom's soft words of encouragement, they welcomed their daughter into the world. Tom went on for days talking about how it felt to cut the cord, marveling at its toughness, and the densely-packed blood vessels inside, like fibers inside an electrical cable. She treasured the memory of Amélie suckling earnestly for the first time, and the three of them, huddled quietly together, their little family, and Tom watching over her until she finally slept, exhausted. The next day Tom showed up at the hospital to take them home, after having first burst into the fanciest baby shop in Manhattan, demanding the pinkest onesie they had for his new daughter. He tipped the cab driver handsomely for having to endure both his and Rachel's demands he be careful driving on the way home. They both followed their instincts and brought their daughter to bed with them, perfectly safe, and so all Rachel had to do was reach over and feed her at night, then fall back to sleep. She did need to be changed however, and they traded off that duty, and both managed to get enough rest to confound some of their more hollow-eyed friends with young children. Tom enjoyed carrying her draped over his forearm, her little head resting in the crook of his elbow, often sound asleep, drooling on his sleeve. He liked to say this freed up his other hand for a beer. And Rachel learned how to nurse Amélie in public so discreetly that people wondered if she ever fed her child.

There was never a shortage of people willing to tell them how to raise their child, but, interestingly, almost none of it was useful. It seemed the only really useful guidance had to come from paying attention to Amélie's personality and their own sense of the Amélie/Tom/Rachel dynamic. It didn't take long for Rachel and Tom to work out their own method. They gauged its success by how many times people approached them to remark on how well-behaved and polite their little girl was when out and about. It meant sometimes enduring her letting off steam at home and only in front of them. It bore good fruit, with Amélie becoming as sweet and unspoiled at home as she was in public.

It was only natural that Rachel would think sometimes about what having children with Finn would have been like in comparison. But he had now been dead thirteen years, and over time her impressions of him, while still strong, came with a softer, more idealized focus. So her thoughts about having Finn's children were more like wistful daydreams, things to muse over on a hot summer's day at the beach, a chance to reconnect to him, to let him know she loved him still, without ever diminishing the joy and satisfaction of her life.

On one of their bookshelves was a small framed picture Artie had taken of her and Finn. It was in the fall of their senior year—golden yellow and red leaves everywhere—and he caught them from behind, sitting closely together on a park bench, bundled up, he in his puffy down vest and her in that red coat and black hat he loved, her hair in pigtails, each leaning inwards toward the other. Finn had told her once that the picture captured their essence somehow, in one exquisite moment. Before she and Tom were married, Rachel decided she would like one picture of them displayed in their home. She approached Tom apprehensively; wondering if that might be more than he would be comfortable with. He said nothing at first, looking into her eyes for what seemed like an eternity, until the answer became clear. He asked to see the photograph she had in mind. She produced Artie's picture, and he stared at it intently for some time, slowly starting to nod as a soft smile spread across his face. "Yeah," he said, "I like this one." Rachel never asked him what went through his mind, and he never offered to tell her. She worried she had hurt him somehow, and that he had to struggle getting his love for her to finally overcome it. Eight years later, she got her answer.

She was in the hall passing the study when she heard Amélie ask her father a question.

"Daddy, who is that sitting with Mommy?"

She paused to listen.

"That is your Uncle Finn."

"I have an Uncle Finn?"

"Yes. He's your Uncle Kurt's brother."

"Where is he? I've never met him."

She heard him pick her up and sit her on his lap.

"Uncle Finn went to heaven before you were born, sweetie. Before I even met Mommy, so I never met him either."

"He sits with Mommy like you do, at the park."

Rachel felt a catch in her throat, as her husband paused before answering:

"That's because he loved Mommy very much, like I do."

"Then I love Uncle Finn, too!" She jumped from his lap and came out into the hall, gave her mother a wave, and disappeared into her room. Rachel poked her head into the study, catching Tom's wide, serene smile, and knew he had been truly good, all those years ago.

"Hey," she said softly, catching his attention. The smile remained in place.

"We've done good with her," he said.

Kelea was sitting at the kitchen table, working on her laptop when they got home.

"Sorry we're so late, " Rachel said, taking off her coat. "We got caught up talking with our friends, and I forgot to text you."

"That's okay." The girl began packing up. "We had a great time watching those old Warner Brothers cartoons you have, and I've been working on my story for school." She gave them a curious look. "You know, I think those cartoons were intended more for adults than kids."

Tom chuckled. "Such a perceptive child." He accompanied Kelea out the door after she gave Rachel a hug, and said, "I'll be back." The cab was waiting, and he would escort her home.

In the cab he paid her, and, as she put the money in her wallet, Kelea turned to him.

"I'd like to be her regular babysitter," she said, "If that's okay."

"As long as it's not a school night, we'd love to have you look after Amélie. She loves you."

"We have a connection," Kelea said.

"Connection?"

Her dark, almost black eyes seemed to bore into him for a moment, and she gave him an enigmatic smile.

"Yeah. I think she and I are becoming Foghorn Leghorn freaks."

Tom laughed. "Yeah, I bet. She does a pretty good imitation of Henry The Chickenhawk, right?" He and Amélie watched the old classic cartoons all of the time. "It beats her playing video games," he told Rachel when she wondered if maybe they could try and expand their entertainment horizons.

"My dad showed me some old Laurel and Hardy movies last weekend. Would it be okay if we watched them next time? I know Rachel doesn't want her playing video games, and—" She gave him a conspiratorial wink. "—she isn't into those musicals much."

"I know," Tom said, winking back. He felt her hand on his arm.

"Amélie is special. You and Rachel are special." She was looking at him with old eyes and that smile that spooked Rachel, and he felt the hair on his head stand up.

He nodded and smiled back, settling into his seat as the girl began talking about school and her writing, and how she didn't think her English teacher was quite ready for her story and her mom wasn't sure if she should submit it for that reason, but all he could think about was the now warm feeling of certainty coming over him, that this girl and his family had more than a coincidental connection, and this connectedness involved more than just Finn, but a complex interweaving of karma and souls and sacrifice and loves, vast, epic and pure, like a myriad of ripples colliding on the surface of a lake.

His love for his wife and daughter gave him clarity, a fleeting comprehension of being part of a vast, expanding lattice of love that spanned years, maybe even centuries. He had no way of sorting all of it out, so he stopped trying, and, at that moment, his eyes and the girl's met, and for an instant, one blessed instant, everything became revealed.


	11. Chapter 11

The small ship lay at anchor in the shallow bay at dawn, rocking in the gentle Atlantic swells. A boat was lowered and its crew began rowing towards the flat beach.

Diego de Montoya of Castile sat miserably in the back of the boat with the coxswain, wrapped in his cloak to ward off the chill, watching the four seamen row. He hated boats. They had sailed south out of the Spanish port of Cádiz three days ago, headed for the Moroccan coast south of Tangier, and he had been seasick the entire time. Having to give Tangier itself a wide berth to avoid detection hadn't helped. In the little boat he felt even worse. He tried distracting himself by thinking about his wife. Inês was from a noble Portuguese family, blessed with that legendary Portuguese combination of stunning beauty and fierce intelligence. Fortunate for a political marriage, he thought. That seemed to help; his stomach settled down, not that it had anything left in it to expel.

The sun peeked over the low hills surrounding the bay, and he could see the large, white-washed house set back from the beach, with date palms surrounding it. No other buildings were in sight. A figure in a white robe emerged from the house and stood on the beach, facing the boat, then hurried inside.

He felt the boat slide into the soft sand of the beach, and the men jumped out to pull him and the boat further up. Falling to his knees on the sand, he crossed himself. Thank God for land. There was movement at the house. Two figures had emerged, hurrying towards him. One was a woman, tiny in comparison to the other and his heart swelled as they approached.

He spread his arms to welcome them.

"Welcome, my friend!" Hamza bellowed, slapping him on the back.

Jamila touched his arm. "Oh Diego, it is so good to see you again!"

"And it is a great pleasure to see you both, my lady," Diego said gallantly in Spanish. It was common at the time for both Moors and Spaniards alike, especially royalty, to be fluent in both Spanish and Arabic.

Jamila defied Muslim convention and hugged him. "Come, come," she said, beckoning him towards the house. She paused to give instructions to a servant about feeding his crew.

Inside, the large house was airy and well-lit, with cool tiles on the floor. It was built around a well in the elegant courtyard. Diego appreciated the graceful Moorish architecture as he looked around the large family room, with rich rugs and pillows, and handed his cloak to a servant.

"So, this is the home of the esteemed silk merchant Ahmed Zahari," he marveled. Hamza gave an elaborate bow, "At your service," he said, gathering Jamila to him, "And this is my beloved wife, Kalila." She giggled as Diego took her hand and kissed it, in the Spanish tradition.

"Please, sit," Hamza said, and they all dropped, cross-legged on the main rug in the room, as servants brought coffee and small, delicious sweet cakes.

"You both look wonderful," Diego said.

"Especially for corpses, eh?" Hamza chuckled

"Indeed."

"We are forever in your and Inês's debt, truly," Jamila said.

"How could I refuse the people who had treated us so kindly, despite the hatred between our peoples? Inês and I give thanks and pray for you every day."

"Inês, she is well?" Jamila asked. Diego nodded.

"She is with child," he said proudly, and Jamila clapped her hands.

"As am I," Jamila said, shyly, and Diego raised his eyes to heaven.

"We had prayed for this," he said, "After your terrible loss." He paused and looked fondly at them.

"Do you have any news of Aixa?" Hamza asked. "Jamila's family cannot risk contacting us anymore, even though they helped in all this. Everyone else must think we are dead. Aixa's future depends on it. "

"Of course, " Diego agreed. "Aixa is well, but I am here to tell you she gave you a healthy son, Mohammed."

At the news, Hamza's eyes glistened with a bittersweet joy and Jamila drew close and hugged him.

"God is great," he said. "His will has been exactly what we hoped."

Mohammed's birth cemented the ties between the Emirate and Aixa's father, guaranteeing his loyalty. But the boy could never know that his father hadn't died in battle, and that the battered, unrecognizable body of an unknown Moorish soldier had been substituted for Hamza and returned to Granada. He could never know that Jamila's family had invented the story of Jamila's death from grief in her hometown of Almeria, and secretly met with Diego's family to spirit the two of them away to Morocco.

Hamza, in return, would never know his son. But, as he explained to Diego in his tent that rainy night after the battle, it was the only way he could salvage some semblance of his duty to Granada, still save Aixa from a loveless marriage and guarantee his happiness with the only woman he ever loved.

"You're willing to give up everything for Jamila?" Diego asked him, earnestly. It seemed to him, at the time, inconceivable.

"Jamila _is _everything," he replied. He knew Aixa was with child, and a son or daughter would keep that tie with her father. The child would also protect Aixa's position within his family. The time was right to do this.

Diego placed a hand on Hamza's shoulder. "What if the child is lost?" he asked gently, knowing about Ahmed. The pained look in the man's eyes told him everything he needed to know. Hamza could only be with one woman, and could not abide ruining the life of another, duty or not.

"After marrying Aixa, I became slowly unable to perform my duty," he confessed. "I was as gentle with Aixa as I could on our wedding night, but she was still just a girl, and terrified, and cried piteously for her mother." Both men knew there was no choice in the matter—servants were assigned to inspect the bed linen to ensure consummation had occurred, and to confirm the bride was indeed a virgin.

But it haunted him.

Members of Jamila's family secretly transported her to the coast, where a small ship took her to reunite with Hamza in Cádiz, and they sailed together to Morocco in a ship provided by a member of Inês's family who owned a shipping business. The house was procured with a portion of Jamila's brideprice, which had reverted to her family after her "death". The rest was seed money for Hamza's cover as a silk merchant.

"I run the enterprise out of Tangier by paying someone there to handle things. It's quite profitable." He laughed, but turned serious. "Diego, my friend, we want to thank you and Inês from the bottom of our hearts." Jamila nodded and sat closer to her husband as a servant brought in a wooden chest.

"Please accept this as a token of our gratitude and friendship," she said.

It was filled with luxuriant, brightly-colored silk cloth, worth a small fortune in Spain.

"It was the least we could do, after your extraordinary kindness," Diego said.

"Can you stay the night and feast with us? Celebrate something honorable and decent between such sworn enemies?"

In the morning Diego said good-bye to his friends, and promised to return as often as he could with news about Aixa and Mohammed, and his own family. The irony of the situation, him being a Christian and them being Muslim, bitter enemies on the battlefield, yet such warm friends when some of the less noble realities of the world were removed from the situation, did not escape him. Hamza once told him that Jamila made him want to be a better person, and the night before, at the feast, Jamila said the same thing about Hamza. She also said his love for her, this wanting to be a better person, erased the differences between Christian and Muslim for him, and made his decision to give up his old life easier. "He said we are all _Ahl-Al-Kitab,_ people of the Book," she told Diego, who nodded, "And that he could no longer justify killing a man over how he worships his God."

Jamila had transformed him. They had transformed each other. They had saved Aixa's heart. And, as Diego mused in the back of the little boat, they had transformed him, too. He sensed their love rippling out, washing warmly over him, through space, and maybe even time as well, he didn't know, because he wasn't a man prone to deep introspection. Still, as his ship set sail, under an impossibly azure Moroccan sky and a fair wind, Diego felt as if he was leaving the warm, beating heart of the world.

**XXXxxxx **

Rachel was in bed, reading, when her husband came home. He seemed excited, but rushed into the bathroom to prepare for bed. As he came out, he stopped at the ring tree on her dresser, and brought the engagement ring, slipping it on to her finger.

"What's this about?" she asked, smiling.

Tom took her ring hand in his. "I- I think I had a satori in the cab," he said. Before she met Tom, she would have had to ask him what that term meant. But she had been married to him for eight years, and in love with him for ten, and knew the very basis of his Buddhist beliefs.

"You had some kind of enlightenment? In a cab?" The incongruity of it made her want to laugh, but Tom looked so serious, she left it at that.

"I know, I know, I wondered about that myself, but it's no less ordinary than a spot underneath a bodhi tree, I guess."

"So tell me."

He rubbed the ring with his thumb. "Do you remember asking me about how karma worked, and whether or not different people's karma could interact?"

She nodded.

"Well, Kelea spooked the hell out of me. I've been thinking about what happened all the way home."

Rachel waited, patiently, as he tried to formulate the thought.

"I had this vision of karma as waves, or ripples, with different sources. Waves interact with other, sometimes canceling, sometimes reinforcing."

He squeezed her hand.

"You told me tonight that you felt more content than any time in your life. Well, in the cab with Kelea I felt this fleeting vision, of all the karmic waves and sources contributing to our lives at this moment. There was so much I couldn't possibly grasp all of the detail. It was like that time we were coming into Boulder, Colorado out of the Rockies on our way to Lima. Remember how dark it was, and that thunderstorm, far away on the plains below lighting up the whole world for a brief instant?"

Rachel nodded, "Oh yes, I remember…"

"If you wanted to concentrate on any one detail, there wasn't enough time, but at that moment _everything_ was illuminated in one giant flash?"

She patted his hand.

"Well, I wasn't particularly concentrating, but when the realization hit, I got the feeling our happiness was due, in part, to waves going back hundreds of years. I got the distinct sense of we are riding the crest of a pattern of wave reinforcement back to Hamza and Jamila, with contributions from my grandparents and our parents, and Finn, and who knows who else, unbroken waves of love coalescing back to one source."

"The ring?" she whispered. He nodded. "It's like we are their loves' beneficiaries."

"Yes, exactly—you understand," Tom said.

He crawled into bed with her, and they held each other, thinking about the souls of those two people they never even met, yet who, in their love for each other, impacted lives across centuries of time. And they fondly remembered Finn, lost so long ago, yet vitally here with them and watching over their daughter.

"What does it all mean?" Rachel wondered.

"It might not 'mean' anything, Rachel," Tom replied. "It may just _be_."

She pondered that for a moment.

"Noah wondered about you at our engagement party." He raised his eyebrow. "He asked if you were filling my head with hippie woo."

"And what did you tell him?"

"I said you took my sadness away. And that's what counts." She kissed him. "You make me happy. And that just _is,_ as well. I'm grateful for you and Amélie; it doesn't have to have any greater meaning, I guess. As long as we live lives as decent people, and teach our baby by example, that will be our fruit, and our karma, right?"

He nodded, and kissed her back.

"I can live with that," she said.

FIN

**A/N: And so it ends. Many thanks to my readers and the kind reviews. Shantih. **


End file.
